Indonesia’s Krakatau Steel has reported it continued to record losses through the first nine months of 2018. It says it hopes to complete a debt restructuring this month and is looking at making acquisitions later in the year to boost its bottom line, Kallanish notes.

Over January-September 2018, Krakatau posted a net loss of $36.716 million, although that was down from a loss of $78.621m a year earlier. Revenues were up 22.7% over the period, supported by a 14.2% increase in volumes to 1.396 million tonnes as well as higher prices.

The company said it has boosted efficiency at its hot strip mill and saw HRC sales increase steadily through the year. It adds that it has a 40% market share in HRC in Indonesia and this should increase once it commissions its new 1.5 million t/y HRC mill by the end of the year.

After reporting losses for six straight years, the company hopes to return to profit in 2019. To achieve this, it hopes to announce it plan to restructure over $2 billion in debts by the end of January. New Krakatau director Silmy Karim says this would include loan renegotiation and debt for equity swaps. Much of the state-owned company’s debts are held by state-owned banks.

Silmy also noted that Krakatau is preparing to acquire two to three other state-owned firms. According to local media reports, the names cannot be revealed because they are private limited companies but the acquisitions could be initiated in the second or third quarter this year. The acquisition was said to be linked to building the Cilegon area into a 10m t/y steel production base, and the acquisition would be in partnership with construction companies.