Hindustan Zinc net profit drops 33 pc to Rs 1,339 cr in Mar quarter

Vedanta group firm Hindustan Zinc Ltd (HZL) on Thursday reported a 33.4 per cent decline in net profit to Rs 1,339 crore for the quarter ended March 31. The company had posted a net profit of Rs 2,012 crore in the corresponding quarter of 2018-19, Hindustan Zinc Ltd said in a filing to the BSE.

Its total income declined to Rs 4,861 crore in the January-March quarter, compared with Rs 6,030 crore in the year-ago period. HZL Chief Executive Officer Sunil Duggal said, "Industrial activity across the globe is undergoing a level of disruption never seen since the Second World War. In these challenging times, our focus is business continuity and safety of people and operations and supporting our communities affected by the pandemic." He added that the company has ramped up its operations back to normal levels and is confident of delivering good performance in 2020-21.

Its Chief Financial Officer Swayam Saurabh said the company is accelerating its sustainable cost-reduction programmes and finding new opportunities to control costs and conserve capital in rapidly-evolving ecosystems. "We are confident to emerge stronger from the current economic crisis and generate superior returns for our shareholders," he said.

The company said it has taken a pro-active approach to keep its assets and people safe while increasing engagement with its communities during these difficult times of COVID-19. The company's operations were halted from March 22 and most employees were encouraged to work from home, barring some who attended the call for duty to keep production assets safe including critical care and maintenance.

To ensure business continuity, a committee 'COVID-19 Response War Room' was created to identify and implement critical business decisions to restart mines and plants in a safe manner and ramp up while ensuring restoration of supply chain. "We gradually restarted our operations from April 8 and all our mines and smelters were operational in a couple of weeks. In April 2020, we ramped up our mines and smelters to 40 per cent and 80 per cent of capacity, respectively," the statement said.

The company's mined metal production for the quarter was up two per cent year-on-year to 2,49,000 tonnes despite operations shutdown from March 22 onwards due to the coronavirus-induced lockdown. Owning to uncertainty around ongoing lockdowns and business disruption risk, it said, "We are deferring guidance for 2020-21 to the end of the first quarter. Our current focus remains around sustaining normal level of productions, active management of costs and capital conservation." PTI SID HRS

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