JSW Steel readies to restart mills after lockdown

Indian private-sector producer JSW Steel fell just short of its 2019-20 production target because of the coronavirus outbreak but plans to restart all its operations when India's lockdown is scheduled to end on 15 April.

It achieved 97pc of its targeted crude steel production at 16.06mn t in the 2019-20 fiscal year that ended on 31 March, it said today. Crude steel output for 2019-20 fell by 4pc and for the January-March quarter by 5pc from a year earlier. Production had started the year higher, up by 1pc during January-February but slowed in March with the outbreak and lockdown.

JSW Steel has stopped operations at all its downstream units and scaled back all steel-producing operations to contain the spread of coronavirus during India's 21-day lockdown from 25 March.

The 18mn t/yr JSW had revised its crude steel output target in October to 16.5mn t, down by 450,000t from its previous guidance.

The slowdown in economic activity because of the coronavirus and consequent nation-wide lockdown in the latter part of March led to a sharp fall in production across plant locations, JSW said.

JSW reduced its 2019-20 sales guidance to 15.5mn t from 16mn t in October but has not yet released steel sales data. Its flat products output dropped by 3pc to 11.35mn t from a year earlier, while long products output fell by 4pc to 3.72mn t.

JSW in January halted expansion work of its 10mn t/yr Dolvi unit in west India's Maharashtra state and at Vijayanagar in south India's Karnataka state that would increase overall capacity to 24mn t/yr. JSW's 12mn t/y Vijayanagar unit is India's largest steel producing facility at a single location.

By Charlotte Rao

source: Argus Media