In a bid to counter losses sustained during April- June 2013, steel authority of India (SAIL) is gearing to export close to 7 lakh tones of steel as opposed to 3.3 lakh tones which was exported last year.

As of June 30, the company is languishing under debt of Rs 23,300 crore. Of this, Rs 11,588 crore is domestic loans, while remaining Rs 11,712 crore has been borrowed in foreign currencies.

Chandra Shekhar Verma, chairman, SAIL said that he is optimistic that the exports revenue which contributes to 3 to 4 % of the turnover should go up to Rs 2500 crore this year.

SAIL produced 6 per cent more saleable steel at 3.2 million tonnes (3.02 million tonnes) during the current quarter.

The steel giant reported 35 per cent drop in its net profit at Rs 451 crore (Rs 696 crore) during April-June 2013. The sharp decline in net sales realisation (NSR) of 10.9 per cent per tonne of steel in the quarter due to subdued market conditions adversely affected the profitability of SAIL.

Bhavesh Chauhan, Senior Research Analyst at Angel broking said that SAIL’s first quarter net profit was better than his estimate on account of lower than expected raw material costs and higher than expected other income.

Angel broking said that the public sector steel manufacturer’s net sales decreased 5 per cent year-on-year to Rs 10,106 crore which is lower than their estimate of Rs 10,452 crore. They also added that the raw material costs and power and fuel costs declined by 6.4 per cent and 5.8 per cent to Rs 4,057 crore and Rs 1,153 crore, respectively.

However they added that staff costs grew by 15.2 per cent year-on-year to Rs 2,295 crore, which resulted in its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) declining by 36.2 per cent year-on-year to Rs 967 crore.