Indorama Ventures Limited (IVL), a global chemical producer, has announced financial result for its first half (H1) of fiscal 2020. Revenue for the six months period was down to $5.28 billion compared to the sales of $5.95 billion in the same period last year. EBITDA for the reported period dropped to $608 million (H1 FY19: $665 million).
“In these unprecedented times of economic and geopolitical volatilities, we are satisfied that around 80 per cent of our business portfolio servers non-durables where demand was healthy and actually contributed to margin growth and strong liquidity,” Aloke Lohia, Group CEO of Indorama Ventures, said in a press release. “We have seen early signs of recovery on the other 20 per cent of our business with the easing of lockdowns and improvement in oil prices.”
IVL’s second quarter performance was reportedly driven by strong PET demand, higher integrated PET spreads, lower conversion costs, higher demand in hygiene fibres segment and normalisation of Q1 FY20’s PO/MTBE shutdown.
The mobility and lifestyle fibres segment were impacted due to lockdowns, with lower consumer spending on durables and travel restrictions. Around 80 per cent of company’s products cater to non-durable sectors where the demand impact caused by Covid-19 and margin meltdown due to crude collapse was not felt.
“As we look ahead to the second half of 2020, we feel confident in our business model as our regionalised footprint, coupled with the inelastic nature of our products, allows us to continue to sell at all times and create a steady stream of operating cash flows,” Lohia said.
