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Industries Qatar Posts Record Q2 Profit | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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DUBAI (Reuters) – Industries Qatar, Qatar’s largest company by market value, posted a record profit in the second quarter, beating an analyst’s forecast.

Its shares jumped by three percent.

Net income in the three months to June 30 rose 33.7 percent to 1.16 billion riyals ($318.8 million), compared with 865.66 million riyals in the year-earlier period, Reuters calculated, based on first-half data the state-controlled company released on Monday.

The company, which groups chemical, metals and fuel additive businesses, made 2.051 billion riyals, or 4.1 riyals per share, in the first half, it said in a statement on the Qatar bourse Web site, without giving a comparison. It gave no other details.

“The major news in Qatar is Industries Qatar announcing very strong second-quarter results … it was better than the market expected,” said Rami Sidani, senior associate for asset management at Dubai-based investment bank, Shuaa Capital.

Mohammed Shareef al-Shirrawi, head of finance at state-owned Qatar Petroleum, the company’s founding shareholder, declined to comment when reached by phone. Qatar is the world’s third-largest holder of natural gas reserves.

The second-quarter earnings beat a forecast last by Dlala Brokerage & Investment Holding of 1.02 billion riyals.

Qatar Steel Co., a unit of Industries Qatar, said in March it plans to set up a company with state-controlled Saudi Basic Industries Corp. (SABIC) in Mauritania to produce iron ore pellets.

Global prices for reinforcing steel bar rose 23.5 percent during the second quarter to about $630 per tonne from a year earlier. SABIC, the world’s largest chemical company by market value, last week posted its fourth straight record profit in the second quarter on higher product prices and output.

The average price of a basket of SABIC’s biggest products — excluding steel but including urea, ethylene and polypropylene

— grew 10.2 percent in the second quarter from a year ago to a — grew 10.2 percent in the second quarter from a year ago to a record $974 per tonne, according to HSBC.

The government of Qatar owns 70.12 percent of Industries Qatar, whose shares have surged almost 31 percent from Jan 1 to Sunday’s close. They closed up 3.08 percent on Monday.

The company made a profit of 892.97 million riyals in the first quarter.