Date:31/10/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/10/31/stories/2008103156141800.htm

Business

Tata Chemicals sales zoom

To speed up ongoing projects

— PHOTO: SHASHI ASHIWAL

IMPROVED REALISATIONS: Homi Khushrokhan (right), Managing Director, Tata Chemicals, with Kapil Mehan, Executive Vice-President, Crop Nutrition and Agri Business, at a press conference in Mumbai on Thursday.

MUMBAI: Tata Chemicals on Thursday reported a 34 per cent jump in net profit for the second quarter ended September 30, 2008, on the back of improved realisations and healthy demand for soda ash and fertilizer.

The net profit soared to Rs. 278 crore from Rs. 208 crore in the same quarter a year ago, the company said.

“Both the sectors witnessed healthy demand,” Managing Director Homi Khusrokhan told reporters here. Its revenue for the reporting quarter stood at Rs. 4,661 crore against Rs. 1,733 crore, year-on-year recording a jump of 169 per cent. “Soda ash prices have continued to be firm,” Mr. Khusrokhan said. However, the company had seen a 7 per cent fall in soda ash demand in the U.S. market, which was compensated from new markets such as Latin America, he said.

The company was expecting U.S. demand to be dull for the next few months, he said, adding that there was no slowdown in demand from Europe. Earlier this year, the company announced a Rs. 500 crore capital expenditure for debottlenecking projects.

With global credit crisis looming and a subsequent fear of slowdown, the company had decided to speed up projects that were nearing completion and hold back long gestation projects, Mr. Khusrokhan said.

Tata Chemicals was pushing back a few projects for six to eight months, he said.