'Our capacities are just in time to meet growing demand in India'

A surge in steel exports from China has been casting a shadow on the global steel industry. As steel prices slipped, the country's largest steelmaker, JSW Steel, reported an 84 per cent year-on-year decline in consolidated net profit in Q2FY25. In a telephonic interview, JSW Steel, joint managing director and chief executive officer, JAYANT ACHARYA, tells Ishita Ayan Dutt that short-term challenges will not be a direction for its overall expansion in the medium to long term. Edited excerpts:

- JAYANT ACHARYA, Joint MD & CEO, JSW Steel

Steel prices have moved up from the lows of Q2, but on the raw material side, iron ore prices have increased. What is the outlook for Q3?

Q2 was a challenging quarter because of the overall environment which was compounded by the Chinese exports and high imports coming into India. We made up for it through lower cost.

The Indian operations did better in terms of Ebitda/tonne than the quarter before. The volumes were also very strong. Crude steel production and domestic sales were the highest. So, that was a positive despite the challenging environment.

We expect that India will close the year with around 150 mt of demand in India. Therefore, H2, which is seasonally stronger, will be good.

We will have volumes kicking in from Indian capacities from JVML (JSW Vijaynagar Metallics Limited (JVML) and Bhushan Power & Steel (BPSL) which will go into the tailwind of a strong demand in the second half.

The cost will go down, despite a negative surprise on the increase in iron ore price in India. Coking coal cost is going down by $20-25 a tonne in this quarter. We will improve our sourcing of iron ore from captive mines which will enable us to offset the iron ore challenges.

Steel price increase took place in October because international prices went up after the China stimulus, which was reflected in India. So, increase in price, lower cost, good volumes that's how we see Q3 and Q4.

Did you see a slowdown in demand from the auto and infrastructure segments in Q2?