Goa Carbon closer to its low

Goa Carbon Ltd (GCL) is not doing too well today morning. The stock price touched an intraday low at Rs.313.15, going down over 2% and not too far from its 52-week low of Rs.307.

The company, the 2nd largest manufacturer of CPC (calcined petroleum coke) in India, posted a weak performance for Q1FY20. Though net sales showed a 11% (YoY) at Rs.139 crore and net loss was at Rs.5 crore v/s profit of Rs.7 crore (YoY) though it has come down from its Q4FY19 loss of Rs.9 crore. An over 150% (YoY) jump in other income  and 20% drop in raw material prices was not enough to avoid the losses.

Capacity utilization of the company for Q1FY20 has come down to 76% as compared to 82% of the corresponding previous quarter.

The company said that due to challenging business environment, mainly on account of the significant increase in raw material prices and dumping of imported Calcined Petroleum Coke (CPC) at cheaper rates into India, the profit margins affected adversely resulting in loss.

A part of the Dempo Group, GCL supplies CPC to leading domestic as well as international aluminum smelters. GCL has a total manufacturing capacity of 240,000 TPA. While it started with manufacturing facility in Goa (75,000 TPA), GCL further augmented its capacity in 2002 by acquiring a petcoke calcining unit at Bilaspur in Chhatisgarh (40,000 TPA) and Paradeep Carbons Ltd. (PCL) at Paradeep in Odisha (125,000 TPA). The Bilaspur and Paradeep units are now merged with GCL.