The company has sold 38 tonne of silver forward contract at about $62 per ounce for the September quarter and it is slightly higher than the current prices, said Gupta
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Dado Ruvic
Hindustan Zinc plans to invest ₹5,000 crore in this financial year to enhance capacity and new projects to be announced in the near future in mining.Arun Misra, Chief Executive Officer, Hindustan Zinc said the company will use 80 per cent of the planned ₹5,000 crore capex in ongoing brownfield projects and the remaining 20 per cent reserved for the new projects to be announced.It plans to fund major portion of the capex through internal accruals and consider fresh debt only to bring down the cost of borrowing, he said.Amit Gupta, Chief Financial Officer said the company has enough surplus cash and the rise in production with firm LME prices the capex programme should be funded through internal sources.However, he added being a ‘AAA’ rated company and positive arbitrage in terms of borrowing, the company will keep all the options open and take a call on fund raising at the right time, he said.Misra said the rally in LME prices, slight uptick in volume, lower cost and improvement in efficiency led to the company more than doubling net profit in the June quarter to ₹5,469 crore ( ₹2,234 crore).“We expect, zinc prices on LME to remain firm in the second quarter. Similarly, the silver output and prices also should also remain strong,” he said.The company has sold 38 tonne of silver forward contract at about $62 per ounce for the September quarter and it is slightly higher than the current prices, said Gupta.Zinc demand and prices are expected to remain firm despite the ongoing war in West Asia.Misra said the economic activities in Europe was not much affected due to West Asia war because they run on gas mostly through gas pipeline from Russia, Ukraine and few other countries.India is also, to some extent, insulated because it can source from Russia and others, as far as fuel is concerned, he added.No doubt Hindustan Zinc has a market in West Asia, but if there are issues there, it can sell in Southeast Asia. Overall worldwide about 12-13 million tonne of zinc is produced and sold. We are at one million tonne-level. And entire India demand itself is about 850,000 tonne, he said insisting that the company is more secure.The overall impact on the company due to the West Asia crisis was about $40-50 a tonne including oil and other commodity prices, said Misra.Published on July 25, 2026
