India – perhaps the lone bright spot on the global steel map – is likely to witness its production of crude steel increasing by roughly 11% y-o-y to 142 million tonnes (mnt) in financial year 2023-2024 (FY’24) compared with 127 mnt in FY’23, as per projections by BigMint based on statistical dissection of available data. While the country’s production of hot metal from the BF-BOF route (including marginal HM production from smelting processes) is likely to increase 6% y-o-y to nearly 86 mnt in FY’24, growth in DRI production, mainly to feed steelmaking through the electric route, will be around 16% y-o-y, with sponge iron production expected to exceed 50 mnt.
