ArcelorMittal South Africa is the latest listed company to acknowledge the detrimental effect of load curtailment.
Steel manufacturer ArcelorMittal South Africa is the latest major listed company to report a serious drop in earnings in the first six months of 2023, citing load curtailment as a serious irritation.
However, despite the international trading environment in the first of the year benefitting from de-stocking and less painful energy prices, the local environment was affected by load shedding, high inflation, high interest rates, and mixed growth in key steel-consuming sectors – hurting already low levels of consumer confidence.
Despite crude steel production increasing by 29% from 1.05 million tonnes in H1 2022 to 1.36 million tonnes for the H1 2023, the group said that its commercial coke production dropped by 85% to 9,000 tonnes, with sales volumes also down by 83%.Overall, the group saw its revenue decline from R22.17 billion in H1 2022 to R21.04 billion in H1 2023.Below are some of the key financial statistics for the group:ArcelorMittal is not the first major listed company to flag load curtailment woes this week.
“Furthermore, where shutdowns are unavoidable, they tend to reduce power at the processing stage of the supply chain, not at the mining operations. As such, ore or concentrate is stockpiled for future processing.”
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