YOU’LL SEE NEW JSW STEEL IN 2022, SAYS SESHAGIRI RAO

JSW Steel posted a consolidated pre-tax loss of ~643 crore in the June quarter. But JSW Steel joint managing director and group chief financial officer

SESHAGIRI RAO tells Ishita Ayan Dutt that the future looks better. Edited excerpts:

JSW posted a loss in Q1. What is the outlook?

In April, there was a 20-day shutdown. The results are for two months of operations. In May and June, we were profitable at the total-cost level. In April, the fall in demand was 90 per cent, which came down to 45 per cent in June. On the cost side, coking coal prices came down by $40 per tonne. That benefit will flow in this quarter notwithstanding the ~200 per tonne increase in iron ore price in July. We will have a better cost structure, volumes will increase and product mix will change.

To what extent was capacity impacted by Covid cases in Vijaynagar?

In April, it was 38 per cent and in May

83 per cent. In June, we came down to 76 per cent because of the impact in Vijaynagar. In July, we are over 80 per cent. We will meet our guidance of 16 million tonnes (mt) of production for the year.

Beyond 2021, what holds for JSW Steel?

You will see a completely different JSW Steel in 2022. We had four to five months of work left at Dolvi. But Covid brought it to a standstill. The number of workers came down from 15,000 to 3,000. We will use the second half of the year to complete the project. What is interesting is that people are coming back to work. From 3,000 workers in May, it has now increased to 4,900. This quarter, we expect more people to come in. By the end of FY21, we will have a capacity of 23 mt. We are expanding downstream capacity from 5 mt to 9 mt. There are also pending acquisitions and turnaround of Monnet Ispat.