Egypt’s largest steel producer Ezz Steel has posted a significant decline in its financial results for the first half of the year as its operations were severely hit by the impact of the Covid-19 virus on the business environment in the country.
As a result, according to local media sources, the company’s net loss totaled EGP 2.3 billion ($150 million), which means an increase of 77 percent year on year. The revenues of Ezz Steel in the first six months of the year retreated by almost 30 percent year on year to EGP 15.3 billion ($970.8 million), SteelOrbis has learned. The second quarter of the year was naturally worse than the first quarter, taking into account that the major lockdowns happened in the April-May period and which severely affected consumption.
Ezz Steel reported that in the first six months of the year average steel sales prices fell by 19 percent and that local scrap purchase prices dropped by 21 percent, while electricity costs increased by four percent, year on year.