Swedish engineering steel specialist Ovako put a difficult 2016 clearly behind it as it produced a healthy set of results in the first quarter of 2017, the steelmaker tells Kallanish. The company’s key performance indicators (KPI) all improved year-on-year.

In its short-term outlook Ovako says that in the second quarter, it expects to continue to see generally good market conditions [… for engineering steels]. More specifically, the steelmaker foresees a positive contribution from new business, lower costs deriving from our restructuring program, and a positive effect from base price increases.

“The year started strongly, with higher order intake, increased deliveries and improved earnings. At the same time our focused safety efforts continued to pay off. We saw positive effects both from our strengthened commercial efforts, where we continue to attract new customers and take new business, and from our restructuring program, which is improving our competitiveness through reduced structural costs. In addition, we saw a positive effect from generally stronger demand in the market,” says ceo Marcus Hedblom in his comments on the results

Ovako's Q1 2017 production volume was 5% higher than in the previous year. Crude steel production amounted to 266,000 tonnes versus 251,000t in Q1 2016, the company confirms. Sales volume of finished steel was 204,000t, an 11% increase on-year.

Quarterly net revenue of €233 million ($254.8m) was 15.9% up y-o-y and net profit grew to €11m from just €1m in the year-before period. Ebitda almost doubled to €31m, up from €17m in Q1 2016.