India: JSW Vijayanagar hot metal output drops 7% in FY21

JSW Steel's hot metal production from its flagship Vijayanagar plant in financial year 2020-21 (FY21) dropped 7% to 10.46 million tonnes (mn t) against 11.19 mn t recorded in FY20. This information indicates the report carried in SteelMint on January 7, 2021 that the steel behemoth was likely to see such a drop in its hot metal output in the just-concluded fiscal.

As per information available, production has started from the new 8-mn t pellet plant. A total volume of around 26,500 tonnes (MT) was produced in the month of Mar'21.

Wire rod mill production at Vijayanagar increased by around 19% to 0.635 mn t in FY21 against 0.535 mn t seen in FY20. This sizeable increase was on account of additional production from the WRM-2, it is learnt.

TMT production at the plant in FY21 was at around 1.30 mn t, down by around 29% against 1.80 mn t recorded in FY20.

Sales

Total sales in FY21 from the flagship plant in FY21 were at around 10 mn t against 10.65 mn t seen in the previous fiscal of FY20, showing a drop of around 6%. In the total sales corpus in FY21 domestic comprises almost 7 mn t with exports at around 3 mn t. In FY20, however, domestic sales had comprised 8.26 mn t against export sales of 2.39 mn t.

Overall, exports in FY21 were up around 30% due to the fact that during the lockdown and beyond it, exports had sustained the steel mills since domestic production had been terribly hit and then started resuming slowly.

March Sales

For the month of March, total sales from Vijayanagar were, however, a little higher than the planned 1 mn t, up over 18% against the actual 0.85 mn t seen in February 2021. February actual sales were down from the planned 0.9 mn t because this month saw a drop in domestic demand due to the rising steel prices.

~Madhumita Mookerji