Posted on 08 Feb 2017
BlueScope’s fortunes continue to improve, with the steelmaker upgrading its expected half-year earnings by $90 million.
At the annual general meeting in November last year, the company predicted it expected to make at least $510 million in the first half of the 2016-17 financial year.
But it turned out BlueScope performed better than expected and now it is expecting its earning figure for the July-December period to be around $600 million.
That’s an increase of 17 per cent.
More impressively, it’s a 160 per cent increase on the BlueScope bottom line compared to the first half of the previous financial year.
It’s a continuation of the company's upward trajectory in the wake of the steel crisis in 2015, which saw the company cut $200 million out of Port Kembla to avoid closing the steelworks.
That saw 500 job losses – through voluntary and forced redundancies.
In a statement to the Australian Stock Exchange BlueScope said the improvement was partially due to “stronger steel prices and spreads across our businesses but particularly benefiting our Australian Steel Products (ASP) and New Zealand and Pacific steel operations”.
The statement said “productivity improvements, including further cost reductions” at ASP and other areas also contributed to the $90 million boost.
While Port Kembla is part of the ASP division, a BlueScope spokesman declined to detail how much the steelworks contributed to the $90 million upswing or whether it was now out of the red.
He said further detail would be forthcoming at the announcement of the half-year results later this month, where it would also give projected earnings for the second half of the financial year.
