Thursday, August 13 2020 15:21

ArmInfo.In the first six months of 2020, the London Metal Exchange (LME) aluminium price fell by 12.83% to USD1,592 per tonne compared with USD1,826 per tonne for  the same period in 2019. This was one of the key contributing factors  to the decline in total revenue in the first six months of 2020 by  15.2% to USD4,015 million from USD4,736 million for the same period  of 2019 and decrease of EBITDA to USD219 million from USD528 million  in the mid of 2019, the press service of the Company reports.

According to the source: <Significant drop in LME aluminium price was  partially offset by improvement of production cost per tonne in  aluminium segment in the first half of 2020, which went down by 5.5%  to USD1,564 per tonne, compared to USD1,655 per tonne in the same  period of 2019. This was a result of effective cost management,  supported by depreciation of the Russian ruble against US dollar and  decrease in oil prices;

The Company confirmed compliance with the 2019 target levels of the  sustainability key performance indicators (KPI) under the  sustainability-linked pre-export finance facility for USD  1,085,000,000 signed in October 2019. The 2019 target levels are  reached or exceeded and therefore the Company is entitled to a  sustainability discount, which reduces the interest rate to 2.1%  starting from August 2020.

Commenting on the interim 2020 results, Evgenii Nikitin, CEO of  RUSAL, said:"Despite the industry slowly starting to recover from the  unprecedented blow caused by the pandemic, we are proud to say that  RUSAL's resilience was down to the robust business model long before  COVID-19. Solid ties with our clients, uninterrupted production  cycle, self-sufficiency in proper raw materials, investments in  environmental and efficient technology, continuous expansion of the  product portfolio, the development of proper technological  applications and a long-term focus on sustainability - all these  assets have placed our business among the leaders of the industry.

Unfortunately, challenges caused by the pandemic are not the only  ones that the world is facing today. The importance of protecting the  environment and impact of climate change requires businesses be more  receptive and subsequently, the investment community and market needs  the corporate sector to respond in accordance with the current  threats facing us. In the post-pandemic times the urgency and need  for lowering carbon emissions is likely to remain a priority.

There are numerous routes towards a low carbon future - one is  through the investment in the research and development and  substantial improvement of the technologies with bringing aboard  breakthrough solutions and another is the production of materials  through renewable energy sources. RUSAL has been at the forefront of  combatting climate change through production of low carbon aluminium  ALLOW with a carbon footprint lower than the market average coupled  with the investment in the environmental technologies. We  continuously strive to enhance our leadership through relentless  development of proper innovative solutions, such as inert anode, and  retrofitting of our smelters (including such substantial production  sites as Krasnoyarsk aluminium smelter) using the Eco-Soderberg  technology.

We believe that our agile approach coupled with the focus on  sustainability will help us go through these challenging times."

To note, in accordance with the decision of the Government of  Armenia, the financial statements of large organizations are  published by July 1 of the next reporting year. According to the  published financial report of ARMENAL for 2019, the plant's proceeds  from product sales increased by 12% and exceeded 46 billion drams ($  1/485 AMD). This allowed the company to provide gross profit at the  level of 663 million AMD.  In addition, the financial income was  increased by 12% - up to 539 million AMD. ARMENAL increased tax  payments to the state budget by 28% in 2019, and by more than 18% in  the first half of 2020.