India’s pellet production dropped by around 6% year-on-year (y-o-y) in FY’21 to 65.7 million tonnes (mn t) against 70 mn t seen in FY’20, according to SteelMint data.
Factors behind drop in production
The reasons for the drop in production lay in the Covid-induced national lockdowns across the country from March till June’20, that led to sharp drop in both production and demand.
Subsequently, steel production picked up especially from the primary mills but they took time to reach full capacity utilisation. Smaller mills operated at around 60% for a longer period.
Captive and merchant production
Of this 65.7 mnt, the share of captive production was at 30 mnt while total merchant production amounted to 35.7 mn t. Within merchant sales, exports comprised 13.7 mn t in FY’21 while the domestic merchant sales consisted of the balance 22 mn t.
Pellet production through the blast furnace route comprised 18 mn t and the sponge iron route, 34 mn t in the year under review.
Top producers
The top pellet producer in India in FY’21 was JSW Steel (excluding Monnet and BPSL) with 12 mn t, followed by AM/NS India at 11.2 mn t, Jindal Steel & Power (JSPL) at 7.8 mn t and the Tata Group with 6.4 mn t. Except for JSW Steel and Tata Steel, most of these producers also sold some volumes in the merchant market.
In FY’20, AM/NS India had been the largest producer with 12.1 mn t, showing a 7.5% y-o-y drop.
In merchant sales, Brahmani River Pellets (BRPL) and Rashmi Group were the top producers with around 3.2 mn t each. BRPL was the largest merchant supplier in FY21 but out of its 3.2 mn t production, almost 80% was exported. The Rashmi Group also sold the major portion of its share in the exports market.
Exports
In FY’21, India’s pellet exports increased by around 10% to 13.70 mn t, rising almost 10% y-o-y against 12.5 mn t seen in FY’20.
Leave a Reply