MUMBAI: Hindalco Industries, India’s largest aluminum producer, said on Tuesday its first-quarter standalone net profit fell 34%, dragged down by higher input costs and production loss due to power shortage.

Net profit for the April-June quarter was 425 crore, compared with 644 crore in the year-ago period, the Aditya Birla group flagship said. However, revenue for the quarter was flat at 6,028 crore. The figures do not reflect the revenues of Novelis, its Canadian subsidiary.

“It has been an extremely challenging quarter. There was an unforeseen (electrical) grid failure at our Hirakud smelter that affected production,” managing director Debu Bhattacharya told ET after the board meeting. “Input costs like coal, furnace oil and caustic soda also rose which lowered our profitability,” Bhattacharya added.

The earnings announcement, which came during market hours, pulled down Hindalco’s shares by 0.9% to 120, on a day when the BSE Sensex gained 0.5%.

Rise in price of coal, caustic soda and furnace oil, which together account for 60% of the company’s total cost, brought down Hindalco’s earnings by about 200 crore.

Further, a cyclone at Hirakud in Orissa snapped power supplies to Hindalco’s smelter, which together with a planned shutdown of the company’s copper production facility at Dahej, affected profits by about 141 crore. These problems have since been taken care of, Bhattacharya said.

Lower prices on the London Metal Exchange, on which Hindalco pegs its products, also impacted revenue. Prices on the exchange fell 24% in the quarter, as the global slowdown crimped demand for base metals such as aluminum, copper, lead and zinc. Typically, Indian metal companies fix their local prices on the LME three-month, dollar-denominated contract prices.

Global consumption of metal has slowed following a contraction in manufacturing in Europe and the US.