Lucky Cement’s yearly profit drops 8.7% to Rs14.8b

Cost of production rises following increase in global coal prices

KARACHI: Lucky Cement has reported a consolidated after-tax profit of Rs14.82 billion, translating into earnings per share (EPS) of Rs45.83 for fiscal year 2017-18, down 8.7% from the EPS of Rs50.18 reported last year.

The company also announced a final cash dividend of Rs8 per share, which was in addition to the interim dividend of Rs5 previously recommended by the board of directors. On a consolidated basis, the company reported gross turnover of Rs124.68 billion, 13.6% higher compared to previous year’s turnover of Rs109.80 billion.

Lucky’s individual gross sales increased 9.4% to Rs67.38 billion against Rs61.60 billion last year. The hike in revenue was attributed to higher volumes and increase in federal excise duty and sales tax.

“The company has reported lower profit despite higher sales because of higher cost of production, which is mainly attributed to increase in coal prices,” Sherman Securities’ Research Analyst Saqib Hussain told The Express Tribune.



Coal prices were, on average, 22% higher in fiscal year 2018 compared to the previous year. Coal’s average price in FY17 was $79 per ton, which jumped to $96 in FY18. At the moment, coal is selling for $105 per ton in the international market. Hussain added that Lucky Cement had failed to get good prices for exports because of an overvalued rupee during the year, which had recently depreciated.

Local cement sales of the company during FY18 registered a growth of 14.8% to reach 6.63 million tons compared to 5.77 million tons last year.

Local clinker sales volume dropped 80.1% to 0.06 million tons during the year against volume of 0.30 million tons last year, resulting in overall local sales growth of 10.2% at 6.69 million tons in FY18 compared to 6.07 million tons last year.

Export sales volume increased 4.6% to 1.13 million tons compared to 1.08 million tons reported last year.

Lucky Cement also shared progress on its brownfield expansion project for production of 2.6 million tons of cement per annum at its Pezu plant and the greenfield investment project for producing 1.2 million tons of clinker at Samawah, Iraq.



In addition to these, the company reported progress on its 660-megawatt supercritical coal-based power project at Port Qasim and an automobile manufacturing plant under licence from Kia Motor Corporation.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 1^st, 2018.

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