India's Jindal Steel plans to prioritise higher-margin, value-added steel production while increasing utilisation of its installed domestic crude steel capacity of 15.6mn t/yr, it said over the weekend.
The company plans to move away from commodity-grade steel production to sharpen its focus on specialised, value-added steel grades. The share of value-added product sales rose to 66pc in April-June, up from 61pc in January-March.
"We are not in the race of putting more hot strip mills or more and more commodity mills," Jindal Steel's new managing director V.R. Sharma said during a conference call on 25 July.
The company will continue to produce rebar as a commodity-grade product, but is not prioritising non-value-added hot-rolled coil (HRC) production, Sharma said.
Jindal does not expect crude steel output to reach its installed capacity of 15.6mn t/yr in the current fiscal year ending March 2027. Instead, the company will likely produce around 11.5mn t crude steel by using its existing blast furnaces, electric arc furnaces and metallics reserves, Sharma said. The company could later readjust its blast furnaces to raise production further, he added.
The company also plans to import direct-reduced iron and hot-briquetted iron, given a shortage of metallics.
Jindal's crude steel production rose by 14pc on the year to 2.4mn t in April-June, but was 9pc lower compared with the previous quarter. Sales stood at 2.23mn t, 17pc higher on the year but down by 15pc on the quarter. Planned maintenance shutdowns across key facilities constrained both output and sales during the quarter, Jindal said.
The company will ramp up production from September, following ongoing disruptions because of heavy rainfall.
Jindal's profit declined by 43pc on the year to 8.45bn rupees ($88mn) in April-June. The hit from lower sales volumes was partially offset by stronger steel prices and a higher share of value-added products, Jindal said.
Argus' weekly Indian domestic HRC assessment for 2.5-4.00mm material rose by 27pc from mid-December to a multi-year high of Rs59,000/t at the start of April. Prices later came under pressure during the monsoons, with the assessment at Rs57,250/t on 24 July, but tighter supply prevented further declines.
