April 28 (Bloomberg) -- SGL Carbon SE, the world’s largest maker of carbon and graphite products, said operating profit may rise as much as 50 percent in 2011 as an economic recovery helps customers in the steel, chemical and car industries.

“We expect all our business segments to benefit fully from the recovery of the worldwide economy” next year, Chief Executive Officer Robert Koehler said today in a telephone interview. Earnings before interest and taxes in 2010 will be “close to” the 110 million euros ($145 million) reported last year, a forecast “characterized by uncertainties as far as the global economy is concerned.”

First-quarter net income rose 6.8 percent to 9.4 million euros, while revenue increased 2.7 percent, Wiesbaden, Germany- based SGL said today. Koehler said questions remain about whether manufacturers are expanding this year or are focusing on replenishing inventories.

“We need to wait and see how much of the recent increase in business is simply restocking, and how much is a sustainable recovery in demand,” Koehler said.

“Industrial production last year stepped on the brakes with a brutality never seen before in order to preserve liquidity,” the CEO said. “Now, it’s recovering more powerfully than we had envisioned three or four months ago,” which may feed through in 2011 to an increase in Ebit of 40 percent to 50 percent.

Pricing Delay

The performance-products division, which makes graphite electrodes for steel manufacturers, may miss an Ebit margin goal of 20 percent of sales in 2010 as raw-material cost increases can only be passed on to customers with a delay, Koehler said.

The graphite-materials business is experiencing a turnaround as makers of chemicals, vehicles, semiconductors and solar panels rebound, while the carbon-fibers division is still “suffering” from 30 percent to 40 percent of excess capacity in the industry, the CEO said.

Concern that Greece’s debt crisis will hurt Europe’s economy poses a “psychological issue that one shouldn’t underestimate,” he said.

“Greece is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of government debt,” he said. “For the macroeconomic environment, that is extremely important,” though SGL hasn’t observed a sales decline in countries with stretched balance sheets.