Korean steelmakers report stellar earnings on rising steel prices
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Update time : 2021-10-28 16:33:12
Korean steelmakers witnessed the highest-ever profits in the third quarter this year, backed by strong sales due to surging steel prices.
On Thursday, Hyundai Steel announced a 2,374 percent jump in operating profit to 826.2 billion won ($705 million) for the July-September period via a regulatory filing.
Consolidated sales jumped 31.3 percent on-year to reach 5.86 trillion won, while the operating profit margin also increased to a record two-digit score of 14.1 percent, the company said.
“We have adjusted the prices of our product to reflect the increased material costs, and also expanded sales of global premium products to improve profitability,” Hyundai Steel said in a statement.
About 43 percent of its sales came from the company’s global premium products, including steel sheets for cars, ships and high-strength steel bars, the firm said.
For the first nine months of the year, the company sold about 6.18 metric tons of the global premium products, it said.
The fall in steel output from China, the world’s top steel producer, also contributed to the strong performance of Korean steelmakers, as the overall supply tightened.
In September, China churned out the lowest volume of daily crude steel since December 2018, with the government introduced new environment policies to reduce carbon emissions.
