Integrated Indian steel major JSW Steel is likely to see a 5-7% decrease in its hot metal production at its flagship Vijayanagar works, for financial year 2020-21 (FY21), as against the 11.19 million tonnes (mn t) produced last fiscal (FY20), as per sources. This seems to be a fallout of the Covid-19 impact at this plant, located in the Bellary-Hospet iron ore belt in Karnataka, since a mere 0.48 mn t of hot metal was produced in April, 2020 (due to the lockdown) and this volume has not been recovered yet since then, sources implied.
However, the Vijayanagar plant has been running at more than 95% capacity since the last two months and produced almost 1 mn t of hot metal in December, 2020.
Sales
The company has set a total sales target of 9.63 lakh tonnes for January, 2021, which is marginally lower from the 9.66 lakh tonnes planned for December, 2020 but a tad higher from the actual sales of 9.54 lakh tonnes achieved in that month.
In January’s targeted sales corpus of 9.63 lakh tonnes, domestic’s share is an overwhelming 8.29 lakh tonnes with the balance 1.34 lakh tonnes planned as export sales.
December, 2020’s actual domestic sales, at around 8 lakh tonnes, were around 4% down from the targeted 8.38 lakh tonnes but up 6% month-on-month (m-o-m) over November’s actual sales of 7.55 lakh tonnes. Export sales in December, 2020 were up almost 20% to 1.53 lakh tonnes against the targeted 1.28 lakh tonnes and m-o-m up 40% over the 1.09 lakh tonnes achieved in November, 2020.
Wire rod mill
JSW Steel’s new wire rod mill (WRM) produced 28,500 tonnes (t) of the product in December, 2020 against the targeted production volume of 35,000-40,000 t, sources informed. In November, the mill had supplied around 20,000 t in the market. The company is ramping up capacity in a bid to feed the increasing demand for wire rods.
Captive iron ore mining
JSW recently started mining operations from its Narayana captive mine, which it had won, along with two others, in the Karnataka auctions in 2019. The environment clearance (EC) limit of the Narayana mine is 1.112 mn t of iron ore and 0.0076 mn t of manganese ore.
The steel major’s total iron ore sourcing in December was at a little above 2 mn t. The Karnataka captive mines yielded 0.49 mn t, and the Odisha captive mines of Jajang and Narayanposhi, 0.42 mn t while supplies from other sources were at 1.18 mn t.
The three Karnataka mines won in 2019 comprise of Ramgarh (12 mn t), Bedarabommanahalli (63 mn t) and Narayana (18 mn t), with total reserves of 93 mn t. That apart, JSW owns six more mines in this southern state that have total reserves of around 120 mn t.
~ by Madhumita Mookerji
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