Mumbai: Tata Steel has reported a 50.13 per cent rise in its second quarter (July-September) net profit at Rs1,787.81 crore against Rs1,190.83 crore in the same period last year.

Tata Steel attributed the increase in net profit to an increase in the proportion of value-added products and higher net realisation on blended value-added products.

Sales receipts too were higher by 43 per cent at Rs6,744.16 crore against Rs 4,724.85 crore. However, volume sales were flat at 1.22 million tonnes but up sequentially by 5 per cent.

Steel production for the quarter was up four per cent at 1.33 million tonnes and 11.7 per cent higher on a sequential basis.

The figures do not include the results of Tata Steel UK or Corus, the company said ion a release.

Income from the transfer of Tata Steel's stake in Tata Steel (Thailand) Public Company to Tata Steel Global Holdings, of Rs136.33 crore has, however, been  included in `other income' of Rs238.37 crore (Rs80.50 crore).

Exceptional items included a notional loss of Rs345.62 crore on an unrealised translation loss on convertible alternate reference securities (CARS) issued in September.

For the half year ended September 2008, the net profit was up 36 per cent at Rs3,276.21 crore (Rs2,412.94 crore) while sales were up 45 per cent at Rs12,834.25 crore (Rs8,856.63 crore).

The results of Tata Steel UK (Corus) will be announced in November and according to Koushik Chatterjee, Chief Financial Officer, Tata Steel, ''around 300 million pound sterling amounting to 10 per cent of the term loans on Tata Steel U.K. have been pre-paid from excess cash so that till the December 2009 quarter, there is no principal repayment obligation for Tata Steel. Pension Fund had a surplus of 690 million pound sterling at the end of June 2008 and till September 2009 this has gone up to 790 million pound sterling.''

Tata Steel expects production in the second half of the year to go up to 6.8 million tonne as part of the expansion of capacity to 10 million tonnes has come on stream from October. A greenfield project in Orissa is also under way.