Higher metal price boosts Press Metal’s revenue for Q2 ended June 30, 2017

Press Metal Aluminium Holdings Bhd , the leading aluminium producer in Southeast Asia,  announced  its net profit increased 2.8 per cent to RM150.17 million in second quarter ended June 30, 2017 from RM146.07 million a year ago driven by higher revenue.

The company’s revenue for the quarter ended June 30, 2017 jumped 31 per cent to RM2.08 billion from RM1.59 billion a year ago. The increase was mainly due to the additional production output generated by its Samalaju Phase 2 smelting plant and higher metal price, it said in a filing with Bursa Malaysia.

For the first half of the year, the company achieved record net profit of RM298.22 million, an increase of 23.9 per cent from RM240.63 million a year ago. Revenue soared 42.6% to RM4.1 billion from RM2.88 billion in the first half of 2016.

Press Metal group chief executive officer Datuk Paul Koon said: “We are very pleased of our record profit in the first half of 2017, which is our first year running on designed smelting capacity of 760,000 tonnes per annum. We are continuing our efforts to enhance plant efficiency and expand on our value added product lines to further increase our margins.”

“With this, we will further maximize efficiency and reduce inland transport costs by installing a conveyor belt linking our smelter directly to the Samalaju Port which is expected to be operational by the end of 2017,” he said.