Thank you, Soham. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to this call to discuss our results for the first quarter FY 2027.

We declared our results yesterday and I hope you've had a chance to go through the numbers. There's also a presentation which explains more details.

To walk you through the results and answer any questions you may have, we have with us our CEO and Managing Director, Mr. T.

V. Narendran, and our ED and CFO, Koushik Chatterjee.

They will share some opening comments and then we will go into Q&A. Before I hand it over to them, I just want to remind you all that the discussions today will be governed by the safe harbor clause which is on page two of the presentation.

Thank you and over to you, Naren.

Thank you. Thanks, Samita, and good morning, good afternoon, everyone.

Let me share some of my thoughts with you and then hand over to Koushik. Tata Steel has delivered a resilient performance in Q1 despite the challenging operating environment.

The developments in West Asia continue to disrupt the supply chain, and the Chinese steel exports of about 9 to 10 million tons a month also has had an impact on international prices. Of course, this has also led to many countries taking actions to protect themselves, which then also has a consequence impact on the steel supply chains and on Tata Steel.

Our performance in some sense is because of our ability to respond to these situations and have a business model which can adapt to these changing conditions. Of course, the continued performance in the Indian operation has helped shore up the numbers.

I would now like to make some comments on our performance in each geography. In India, crude steel production was about 5.76 million tons.

This was lower than the previous quarter because we had some shutdown scheduled and a little bit of some operational issues which are behind us now. In Q4, the strong deliveries also led to an inventory drawdown, and so some of the production went into building up the inventory to optimal levels across our supply chain, and hence you saw the deliveries were about 5.17 million tons in India in Q1.

We were able to offset the impact of lower volumes because of an increase in the realizations to the tune of about ₹6,000, ₹5,990 to be more precise over Q4, and the higher net realizations were partly on the back of improved market prices and partly because of our ability to maximize volume in the chosen segments. This has helped us deliver an EBITDA margin of 27%, which is higher than the 10-year average.

Some of the segmental highlights are what I would like to describe now. The automotive and special alloy business delivered best ever Q1 volumes.

It had a 21% year-on-year growth in high-end sales. We also developed cold-rolled ultra-high tensile steels DP980 for those of you who understand the technicality of it for commercial vehicles and galvannealed steel and secondary coatings for passenger vehicles, and tight tolerance specialty steel bars for transmission gears.

These developments further strengthen our position as a preferred partner in the automotive sector, as you know we have a market share of about 50% in the auto sector. Our well-established brands, Tata Tiscon grew volumes 33% year-on-year, supported by our extensive distribution network, which today covers 97% of India's districts, and the Steelium volumes also helped by the cold rolling mill in Kalinganagar grew by 34% year-on-year, and our digital platforms Aashiyana and DigECA continue to scale with a combined GMV of around 2,200 crores for the quarter, which is 61% up year-on-year.

We continue strengthen our presence in the construction solutions business through differentiated offerings that improve the project efficiency. In fact, it's also addressing a trend today that we see that construction workers or workers are not easily available to work at construction sites, and hence our move towards construction solutions that we deliver is really helping many of our customers.

During the quarter, we also commissioned India's first Superflex Welmesh line at Cuttack in Odisha, and this is a first-of-its-kind facility that can produce engineered Welmesh up to 3.3 meters in width, significantly higher than the industry standard of 2.4. All these initiatives are basically aligned with what we want to do: go more downstream, go towards more and more services, solutions in addition to the products that we provide, and basically look at delivering a convenience and an experience to many of our customers which are aligned with what they expect.

Our efforts to diversify into new end-use segments are also yielding encouraging results, including shipbuilding, where we've got a number of approvals now. Shipbuilding like automotive is an approval-based business, and this has broadened addressable market opportunities for us, and the other area we're looking at is of course data centers.

We are also strengthening our position in the oil and gas sector through international certifications that enable participation in competitive and high-specification projects. Basically, more and more high-value, approval-based businesses as well as emerging consumption sectors like data centers.

Our downstream portfolio continues to build momentum, with the tubes business and tinplate business delivering the strongest ever first quarter performance. Our wires business also expanded its market reach through innovative solutions such as 3D-welded mesh for railway applications and Gaja Mitra, a high-tensile knotted fencing system featuring specially designed tubular structural posts.

These are being used in the south by forest departments, particularly where there are elephant corridors. Colours, the Tata Colours business, which used to be Tata BlueScope earlier, continues to benefit from the infrastructure-led demand, supplying roofing and cladding solutions for projects under the Amrit Bharat Station Scheme.

As you must have heard, the board yesterday has approved the 4.8-million-ton expansion at Neelachal Ispat, which is central to our strategy of deepening presence in high-margin and branded long products, and this is the first phase of growth at Neelachal, and it will expand the total capacity in Neelachal to about 6.2 million tons. As far as UK is concerned, our deliveries stood at 0.5 million tons.

We welcome the recent revisions to safeguard measures, including a 51% reduction in tariff-free quotas and higher duties. There are some categories like galvanized steels, tubular sections, some of the packaging steels, etc., where the current quota allocations are not fully aligned with what we think is fair, because in many cases, the quotas are a significant 70, 80% of the demand.

It used to be higher than the demand, now it's brought down, but still at a very high level. We are working with the relevant authorities to provide industry inputs and support a calibrated approach that balances market requirements with the policy intent.

In Netherlands, the liquid steel production was 1.55 million tons, while deliveries were 1.4 million tons. The temporary shutdown of our Direct Sheet Plant has weighed on the operational performance, because the Direct Sheet Plant or DSP, as we refer to it, is about 20% of our production in Netherlands, and that's been closed since the first week of April.

We have just got the approval to run it for 4 weeks starting 5th of August, and hopefully the data that we generate through that production will help us get the permission to run it beyond that. I think Q1 was impacted by this shutdown, but we hope that in Q2, we are able to address this issue.

Finally, the developments in West Asia continue to impact energy, freight, and some of the raw materials, some of the consumables that we use. We are closely monitoring the situation and taking appropriate action to mitigate the effect of our operations.

With this, I hand over to Koushik for his comments. Thanks.

Thank you, Naren. Good afternoon to those who have joined in.

During the first quarter of financial year '27, the global steel industry continued to navigate a complex and volatile landscape. Geoeconomic shifts, persistent supply chain disruptions, and the ongoing developments in West Asia have continued to exert pressure on input costs, energy prices, and logistics.

Despite these headwinds, Tata Steel has delivered a resilient performance anchored by robust steel realizations, improved product mix that Naren talked about, and ongoing cost transformation initiatives. In today's presentation, I will cover, firstly, the performance for the quarter; second, the strategic decisions by the board; and thirdly, a commentary on the disclosures that you would have seen in the SEBI release.

I will begin the consolidated performance provided on slide 25 of the presentation. Consolidated revenues for the quarter stood at about ₹60,794 crores and EBITDA of ₹9,370 crores.

On a per ton basis, the Q1 EBITDA improved by about ₹2,400 per ton year-on-year and by about ₹1,490 per ton on a quarter-on-quarter basis and is presently tracking close to about ₹13,000 per ton consolidated, which is effectively a 15% margin. It is important to emphasize that this is after the unplanned cost increases of about ₹1,200 crores on a consolidated basis directly due to the West Asia war.

We have witnessed price spikes in energy prices, freight and insurance, natural gas, and logistics costs. With alternative sources and mitigation plans, we expect the impact to taper down in the coming quarters.

Let us now provide a deeper understanding of the India, UK, Netherlands performance individually. Our India business continues to be our growth engine and continues to be 75% of Tata Steel's total crude steel production.

In quarter one '27, India EBITDA was higher by 32% year-on-year to about ₹9,900 crores. India continues to deliver an industry-leading margins.

EBITDA margin improved significantly from about ₹15,907 per ton in quarter four to about ₹19,162 per ton in quarter one. I think there's an echo out here, can all put your mics on the mute.

Tata Steel standalone revenues for the quarter stood at ₹36,897 crores and EBITDA was ₹9,409 crores, which translates to a 26%, 27% EBITDA margin, reflecting a margin improvement of about 95 basis points on a quarter-on-quarter basis. Total revenue was up by about ₹9,212 per ton.

However, this was partly offset by the rise in costs by about ₹6,700 per ton due to lower volumes during the quarter due to annual shutdowns and operational snags, which are now mostly resolved. Within costs, material costs were up by about ₹1,330 per ton and conversion costs were up by about ₹5,400 per ton on a quarter-on-quarter basis.

Material costs were up due to higher coking coal costs, consumption costs, and the higher purchase of rebars from Neelachal Ispat and Tata Steel Thailand as we optimized the value chain opportunities in the marketplace. Conversion costs moved higher due to higher iron ore royalty related expenses and the adverse impact of lower volumes, which will see better coverage through the fixed cost absorption in the coming quarters.

Moving to NINL, the first quarter EBITDA performance was strong at about ₹498 crores, translating to a margin improvement from about 27% in quarter four to about 29% in quarter one, leveraging operational excellence and the commercial strategy of the Tata Steel ecosystem. Moving now to the European operations, I would like to comment on the local market dynamics before moving on to the performance.

Steel prices in the UK have moved higher in the last few months on the back of policy developments. UK reduced tariff-free import quotas by about 3.3 to 3.4 million tons effective 1st July and applied a 50% tariff on imports beyond quota levels.

While this provides near-term support to the domestic supply chains, as Naren mentioned, we have highlighted to the UK government that the measures fall short of their initial proposals, and have requested that the quotas should be revisited to reflect the prevalent market demand, market conditions, demand situations across product categories, not just the total steel volume basis. In the EU, the tightened EU safeguard system announced last year and effective 1st July is designed to complement the CBAM, and together these measures have helped reset the European steel prices and will improve preference for local steel supply over the next few quarters and going forward.

However, the near-term market momentum remains a bit subdued, in part because of the more than average inventory levels and subdued demand on the underlying basis. In July, the European Commission reviewed the EU ETS and has opted for a slower phaseout of the CO2 emission allowances.

The proposal is still aligned with the EU Climate Law targeting about 90% net reduction in GHG emissions by 2040, but has slowed the pressure for the pace of industrial decarbonization in the near decade. We continue to monitor the developments in both geographies and are engaging with the authorities on the safeguards and the upcoming UK CBAM framework.

Moving to the financial performance for the quarter, the UK business continued its steady progress to improve its performance. The EBITDA losses have now narrowed down from -£48 million in the fourth quarter to -£27 million in the first quarter, marking the fourth consecutive quarter of improvement.

UK revenues stood at about £484 million and increased by 3% or £15 million on a quarter-on-quarter basis despite drop in volumes. The uplift was driven by higher net realizations to the tune of about £91 per ton.

This was partly offset by the rise in the total costs to the tune of about £54 per ton, leading to an EBITDA improvement by about £36 per ton. On June 3rd, 2026, there was a major fire at the Port Talbot pickling line.

All personals were safely evacuated with no injuries, reflecting strong safety protocols. We are preparing for the insurance recovery process to recover some of the damages due to the fire.

To mitigate the impact, Tata Steel UK expedited the restart and ramp-up of alternate facilities, the Llanwern cold mill and the pickle line. In quarter one, the volume impact on account of the fire was about 10,000 tons with EBITDA impact of about £5 million.

There is a ramp-up process for the Llanwern mill with new shifts being added to offset some of the volume impacts, and we hope to ensure that by quarter three, quarter four, we should be on normal levels. With relation to the 3-million-ton scrap-based electric arc furnace, our siteworks, construction, and equipment sourcing is largely on schedule.

We have completed the groundworks, 25% of the piling, and the ordering of all major OEM packages. Close to half of the equipment to be delivered has already been manufactured and is readying in parts for delivery.

We have previously said that there will be some delay in the delivery of the new high-voltage connection by National Grid, and we are continuing to work very closely with them and the other authorities to mitigate the delay. Moving to Netherlands, we were affected by the loss of the finished steel production due to the shutdown of the Direct Sheet Mill plant, which Naren mentioned, and for almost the full quarter due to the exceedance of chrome emissions in the line beyond the specified levels.

The Direct Sheet plant annual capacity is about 1.4 million tons, which as Naren also mentioned, 20% of our total volumes. This disruption has impacted the overall volumes and fixed cost absorption this quarter, and hence the profitability as well.

The plant is expected to start for an extended 4-week trial early next week after the completion of the remediation process in close coordination with the regulators. Trial results have been promising so far, and this extended run should provide sufficient information to allow the line to come back into full production in the ordinary course.

Revenues for the quarter was about €1.4 billion. On a per ton basis, the revenue was up by about €87 per ton, but this was more than offset by the rise in the cost to the tune of €118 per ton on a quarter-on-quarter basis, largely due to the volume loss coupled with the increase in the raw material costs.

EBITDA for this quarter was at about €4 million. Our business in Netherlands continues to navigate through certain uncertainties relating to the environment, regulatory, and legal issues.

The difficulty we see is that being the only steel company in the Netherlands, there are often no relevant reference points, and sometimes the local regulatory standards are set beyond the EU norms or those applicable elsewhere in the industry. Since 2020, we have implemented substantial, measurable improvements at our IJmuiden operations.

The number of the so-called undercooked coke incidents, which is subject, for example, the criminal investigation on TSN, has been reduced by 98%, and the occurrence rate now stands at less than 0.011% of the total pushes, which is below the industry average. TSN CO2 intensity stands at approximately 1.66 tons of CO2 per ton of crude steel, placing us amongst one of the most lowest CO2 integrated steel producers in the world or steel producers in the world.

Therefore, while some of the compliance issues are being addressed and mitigated, some technical standards and requirements are both technically challenging and without precedent. We are working with all stakeholders, including the province, regulators, communities, and the Netherlands governments to address these challenges.

Moving now to cash flows, we spent about ₹3,579 crores on capital expenditure during the quarter, of which majority was in India. Our recently completed capacity expansion in Phase 2 of Kalinganagar with 5 million tons and 0.75 million tons of EAF in Ludhiana are ramping up well, and are being complemented by the earlier announced focused investments in the downstream facilities that Naren again mentioned, further strengthening our product mix and reinforcing our leadership in the chosen segments.

In line with the growth strategy indicated earlier, the board yesterday accorded the final investment approval for the 4.8-million-ton expansion in long products capacity covering wire rods and rebars, including solutions beyond that at the NINL site for an investment of ₹33,873 crores towards the core project of the steel capacity expansion. This will take the site to 6.2 million tons at the end of the first phase of the expansion as part of the overall strategy to build 10 million tons in that site.

We are also expanding our iron ore mining capacity in the MBK mines, which are part of NINL, by 15 million tons per annum of iron ore in phases. The merger process of NINL with Tata Steel is also progressing as per plan and is expected to be completed by the end of the current financial year.

Our previously announced expansions in downstream capacity are progressing well. The 300-kiloton capacity expansion in tinplate and the hot-rolled pickling and galvanizing project of 0.74 million tons are both on track for completion within the next 30 months.

The 0.5-million-ton combi mill in Jamshedpur has been commissioned and is midway through its ramp-up. We plan to add about 0.42 million tons of tube capacity also during the financial year '27 through an asset-light model.

On the balance sheet, the net debt stands at about ₹84,000 crores and the net debt to EBITDA comfortably at 2.3, which is within our stated range of 2.5 to 3x through the cycle. The stated range of net debt to EBITDA factors in the funding requirements for all the ongoing and recently announced expansion projects.

Our group liquidity remains strong at about ₹45,950 crores, which includes about ₹13,200 crores of cash and cash equivalent. This provides significant financial flexibility to fund our growth and our upcoming projects.

Our annualized return on invested capital for this quarter in India is about 27%, and on consolidated basis is about 15%. With this, I will end my presentation and open the floor for questions.

Thank you.

Yes, hi, thanks for the opportunity. The first question is on the European prices.

Our expectation was that prices will keep narrowing the gap between US prices, but so far they have been stuck around €700 per ton and demand continues to be weak. As we get into the restocking cycle later in the year, do you think that it will be sufficient to drive a significant uptick in prices?

Thank you.

Thanks. I don't see Naren here, but—

I think we just lost him for a minute. We're just trying to reconnect.

Let me answer that. I think what we are seeing currently is a lot of disruption that has happened on the regulatory front, people have been stocking up.

As I mentioned that the inventory levels are significantly higher than the average levels. We see that as we move deeper into the year, there is a uptick, especially when the contract renegotiation season starts in November, that due to the CBAM impact as well as the quota impact, because we should be mindful of the fact that 18 million tons out of the 30 million tons will be only available for imports.

Therefore, that's almost about 47% of the actual volumes imported will be taken out from the market, leaving the domestic market to supplies to come in, which is the one of the biggest triggers that we see beyond the CBAM. I think there is still fairly a long runway as far as price increases are concerned in the European market.

It will happen in phases incrementally rather than a sharp uptick, because this is a structural change that is happening in the European market.

Got it. That's helpful.

Second question is on the UK. How should we read your overall comments that UK prices are at $100 per ton premium over EU, but of course the safeguard quotas haven't been very effective in cutting down imports and just applicable on certain products?

Broadly tying into the fact that you had guided for a potential EBITDA break-even in second half. Do you still see it achievable or it's contingent on the negotiations that are going on with the government?

Our hypothesis was fundamentally based on the initial proposals that were given. We still believe as we see that the prices have increased.

There are certain segments of value-added products like galvanized or tubes in UK which still has got very high quotas, especially in relation to the Southeast Asian and Asian mills, and that is what we are being basically talking about. I think there is still runway to increase, and our guidance is on when we said that, I think Naren mentioned last time that we are moving towards EBITDA break-even.

That is still on course. There is some heavy lifting we have to do also internally, but maybe irrespective of the change in the quotas, we should minimizing it to almost break-even is what our view is.

Maybe pushed by one quarter, may not be in Q2, but Q3, Q4, in the second half, we should be able to be closer to break-even. I don't think we've changed our goalpost.

The prices are helping, but we need to see. As I said that the contract renewal that will happen from November onwards will also be an indicator as to how the price increases are sticking.

Naren, you want to add?

Got it, thank you.

I missed

the question.

The question was effectively that two questions. First one was on European prices which I answered, that does it have more runway to increase given the muted demand?

The second one was on the UK that are you still guiding for a neutral EBITDA in the second half?

I think in UK, as Koushik said, every quarter is getting better than the previous quarter. The trajectory holds.

I think the speed is what we have struggled with a bit. Hopefully the trade actions, though not fully what we wanted, is helping us and bringing UK prices close to European prices if not slightly better, which is what it was historically.

For the last year or so, it has been well below European prices, and we are happy that that is what addressed. European prices are also moving up closer to the US prices, which traditionally used to be $100, $200 less, and now the gap is almost $400, $300, $400.

I think we are seeing a rebalancing of prices, and we have been talking about this for some time. Which not only reflects the cost in those markets, but also addresses the high imports which was there both in Europe and in the UK.

I think in Europe also, with the quotas coming down to 18 million, there's far more stability as far as imports is concerned, and in UK as well, because of these actions, there is some support, at least for hot-rolled coils, etc.

Got it. Thank you so much.

Thanks.

Hi, sir. Good afternoon and thank you for the opportunity.

My first question is pertaining to the Maharashtra capex, right? Because in the annual report, you have mentioned that the Maharashtra capex would be somewhere around 6-odd million ton.

However, in the presentation and the press release, that has been trimmed down to 5. Is that so that you finalize some plan around Maharashtra?

Is that the thing? The second part of this particular question is related to NINL.

Now that NINL is moving, say, from almost, say, about a 1 million ton to 6.2 million ton, for whatever capex you have announced, the capex works out to almost about 33% higher than the last leg of capex, what you do at Kalinganagar basically. What is the difference, just wanted to get your understanding on the capex front, actually.

Yeah. Go ahead, Koushik.

First on Maharashtra, I think based on the land that we are talking about, it's about plus 3,000 acres is what we are targeting. If you look at our Kalinganagar Phase 2, we actually had one blast furnace, which was 5 million tons.

If you look at it from a productivity point of view and from an asset efficiency point of view, our view is that we will go in that copy plants of 5 million tons, and that is the reason, the total Maharashtra volume eventually in phases can take in somewhere around 15. We've not started the engineering work or work to that effect, but it will be somewhere around 15 million tons, that's the land capacity.

Therefore, from an asset efficiency point of view, it will be effectively three blast furnaces of 5, 5, 5 each. That's the recalibration, because when the 6 million ton was talked about, we had talked about 3 plus 3, but given our experience of using large blast furnaces, it is more productive to use larger blast furnaces rather than multiple smaller ones.

That's the reason for 6 and 5. The point that you mentioned on NINL, NINL you should actually look at it as a greenfield project.

Phase 2 of Kalinganagar was a bolt-on from Phase 1. A lot of enabling facilities of the Kalinganagar 8 million ton was also done in Phase 1.

I think it is important to understand that between the several enabling work that is required on the site, on the layout, environment conditions to be complied, etc., all of this and the size of the plants and the number of mills that we have, because in Phase 2 in Kalinganagar, we did not have to do the HSM because that was already there. We had to just expand the capacity.

It's an asset optimization process, and the NINL one needs to be looked at more like a greenfield.

The other thing to add to what Koushik said is if you look at the exchange rate and for all the equipment that you buy from overseas, that's also changed significantly in the last 10 years. Whether it's Phase 1 Kalinganagar, Phase 2, or now Neelachal, the dollar exchange rate also has an impact on the capital cost for the imported equipment.

Thank you so much, sir, for the answer. Sir, my second question is pertaining to your captive mines basically.

Now that in annual report also you have mentioned that 50% of the requirement post '30 would be met through either NINL or couple of other mines, what you would still have post '30. Just wanted to quickly get your understanding, what is the kind of cost saving or maybe, the kind of delta what we should built in considering that you still have 50% of the mine beyond 2030, and will this 50% ratio still hold when you basically hit a 40-million-ton target basically?

Yeah. If you look at iron ore, today we are maybe about 45 million tons going to 50 million tons, okay, of iron ore production.

I would say 90% of that production is actually coming from our old mines. The newer mines, which is Gandalpada, what we call MKB, which is the Neelachal mines, or Kalamang, which we got with the Bhushan acquisition.

These are today producing less than 5 million tons. Over the next few years, we expect to take this to about 30, 35 million tons, okay?

That's the work which is going on currently. Obviously, the cost of iron ore from those mines will be higher than what we have today, because some of them are with zero premium, some of them are with high premium.

The qualities are different. Gandalpada mine is high premium, but it has very low alumina, so that has a value-in-use benefit, etc., etc.

It's not just a pure iron ore cost, we look at the value in use, we look at the quality. The reason why we said 50% captive is because if you had 30, 35 million tons and you need about 60 million tons of iron ore, then you are at 50%.

We can always bid for the mines, our own mines which are coming up for auction as well as any new mines. We also want to look at the cost of having captive, because having captive ore is not an end in itself.

It should be competitively priced, and if people are paying 120, 130, 140%, then it becomes a bit difficult to justify that kind of a cost. You need some iron ore supply to keep the plant running without disturbance, but otherwise you can buy it in the market rather than pay 130, 140%.

At 140% premium, honestly, imports also becomes an option, right? That's why we said having 100% captive is not an end in itself.

We will evaluate the economic value of being captive and then take a call on what proportion of our iron ore should be captive and what proportion of us should be bought from the market.

Sure, thank you so much.

Thanks.

Hi, thank you. The first on Netherlands.

Just maybe more for understanding. The caster and rolling mill, are you saying 20% of the production is impacted, where the remaining casting and rolling operations don't have high chromium-6?

When you transition to DRI-EAF, Will you still not have challenges there in case some of these things are not there's no resolution, even if you transition, those issues will remain? This coke and oven undercooked, there's a hearing on 20th November.

Is there a criminal case against executives also, or is it mainly company? We don't really know the full extent of what the investigation is.

In light of everything that you're seeing in Netherlands, and the easing of LRF and all, are you less enthused about Netherlands in general or Europe, or If you are so positive about Europe, why Netherlands? Is there a possibility of looking at some other country if you're saying there is only one mill and you're facing challenges there?

Just wanted to understand how you're thinking about Netherlands now.

Sure. Let me start and then Koushik can complete what I've not covered, right?

More specifically to your question, this is of specific emission related to our DSP or Direct Sheet Plant, which is basically what in India you call a thin slab caster and rolling. It is similar to that.

The emission is coming out of the tunnel furnaces that are unique to this way of producing steel where the slab is cast and immediately rolled in the hot strip mill. There's a tunnel furnace which connects those slabs to the hot strip mill, and these are from the rolls, the kind of rolls that you use in those tunnels, right?

This was not a measurement which we were doing earlier. We, as we did the full audit of what are all the measurements that we need to do, we came across this, we found some deviation.

We proactively informed the authorities in the interest of transparency, because that was something that we were trying to do so that we work more transparently with the authorities. It was something that we noticed, we discussed with them, and then they said it's better to shut it down till we solve the problem.

We feel we pretty much solved the problem because we've changed all the rollers. There are dry rollers and wet rollers and so we've changed those rollers, the emissions today seem to be under control.

The authorities have given us a permission to start that plant again on the 5th of August and run it for a month and do the measurements, and we are confident that it should be within what is expected, and hence we should have the permission going forward. It doesn't impact the other parts of the plant because they don't use these tunnel furnaces.

It doesn't impact anything new that you may build because that also doesn't use these furnaces. Now even if you use these furnaces, now you know what are the chrome emission levels for these kind of rolls, and so you will use the right rolls, etc.

I think this is a unique kind of problem which we are pretty close to addressing. The second point, I think Koushik alluded to in his comments, the concern we have in Netherlands is that some of the expectations are beyond what any other steel company in Europe, forget rest of the world, I'm just saying even in Europe, other steel companies are not expected to meet the levels that we are expected to meet in Netherlands.

That is a conversation we're having with the government and the regulatory authorities. The law may be that, we need to look at then is that being fair to us, because ultimately we have to compete with the other steel companies in Europe.

That's a conversation going on with the authorities to see can we be fairer, can we have a more level playing field as far as emissions are concerned, because some of it are technically nobody has done it, we need to find a technical solution. Obviously, some of these will have a impact on the operating capability or the cost, etc., etc.

It's a complicated conversation. I think we feel in many metrics, we are amongst the best in the world.

Like CO2, as Koushik said, we are in the top three in the world through the blast furnace route at 1.66. I'm just giving you a sense, in India, the average is 2.2, right?

In the rest of the world, it is 2. In Netherlands, we are at 1.68, right?

That's the level at which the CO2 emission is. On many other emissions, caster emissions, etc., we are already at levels which nobody else is, right?

These are the challenges. Having said that, the narrative in Europe is because, as I said earlier, the European market, like the US, is also trying to support its industry and make sure that unfairly priced imports are not, in some sense, destroying value for the industry.

Hence, the reduction in quotas is welcome. The CBAM is again making sure there's a level playing field, because European steel producers pay a carbon tax, we pay a carbon tax, anyone who sells in Europe is also required to pay that carbon tax.

It's an equalization kind of thing. We see that and the third thing is in Europe as a geography, there's more investment in manufacturing, in defense, in infrastructure, etc.

We do see these actions helping the European steel industry going forward, and hence the point you're making is the European steel market should be more attractive going forward than it was in the past. From our point of view, we feel our Netherlands asset is one of the best sites in Europe, not only for many metrics of performance, but also because it's a coastal plant.

There are very few coastal plants in Europe, we have one of them. If Europe has to make steel, actually Netherlands and our Dutch plant is one of the best places to make steel because it's well-positioned.

That's why we feel that amongst the locations in Europe, we are already in one of the best locations from a steelmaking point of view and hence would like to be there if we can address all these issues. That's a conversation going on with the authorities.

In terms of the financial numbers, yeah, I think I don't know if Koushik mentioned that during the time when I was out, we expect Q2 to be better than Q1. The benefits that we started getting out of the prices were washed away because of the DSP and because of some of the other impacts, but we expect volumes and EBITDA to be better in Q2 than Q1, lower than what we would like it to be, but certainly starting to move in the right direction.

Maybe, Koushik, you can add to what I said.

I think I'll just add to or respond to Satyadeep, your questions on the DRI-EAF and other country to invest, etc.

Also, Koushik, on the November 20th. I missed that, that needs to be covered.

Yes,

yeah. I think the first point is there are certain here-and-now challenges as we are seeing.

Those challenges, if you look at our SEBI disclosures, we're pretty copious about those challenges. The first one is in relation to the coke and gas plant.

Then there is the strip mill which kind of just is getting addressed. Then there are the emission cases which are relating to green pushes.

As I just mentioned, that there's hardly any green push at this point of time, and we are certainly much, much below the industry standards. As of now, as far as the cases are concerned, the public prosecutor has said we intend to go forward in the case.

We have our defense and I think we have our data and position on the defense. It's essentially on the company.

We have heard about the fact that they can be people named, but not named as yet. We will just see as to how this unfolds.

I think we have all the defense available for us to fight this case out. Second point, I think, as part of our last year's non-binding JLoI with the government, there were certain conditions on both sides.

Slag is one of those conditions, and slag is something that is also not only a future issue, but also here-and-now issue. There are two regulators involved with different views at this point of time, which is what we are working again.

In a nutshell, you can say that we are currently reassessing or assessing the situation with all stakeholders to understand the investability of the DRI-EAF, the regulatory framework within which there is not just an investment case, but also a sustenance case, because these investments are done for 20, 25 years. Therefore, we are looking at the overall risk, return, reward profile and assessing that in the context of the investment proposal that we have.

We've done almost all of the engineering studies, we know now exactly what needs to be done. We will not move till we have clarity on many of these things.

That is how we are. Finally, it has to make the investment in the business case.

It has to have a return which works. I think what Naren mentioned rightly is the point that the European market is expected to be better than before.

There is also the issue in relation to the sustainability of the business, and whether the bang for buck is there for new investments. That is dependent purely on the regulatory side.

As you are aware and as I mentioned, that the EU ETS is also now stretched down. That also will have some impact on the investability, because the CBAM will be lower given the curve.

If CBAM is lower, then it impacts the investment case. To what extent is what we are working around just now.

A lot will depend actually on the quota moving forward which has been announced, and finally is the certainty on the regulatory standards and framework within which we can operate. All of this is being considered, and as I mentioned, we are deeply involved with all stakeholders to understand before we take any decision one way or the other.

Thank you for a detailed answer. Just one quick question on India.

What is the timeline for NINL commissioning? The you have the EAF now commissioned, Ludhiana.

Just maybe if you can share some economics of I know it's just very early in the process, but how do we look at profitability for Ludhiana, and what's the timeline for NINL commissioning you're looking at?

Yeah. NINL is 48 months is what we have committed that within 48 months, we'll have the plant up.

As far as Ludhiana is concerned, it's a different operating model. As the Ludhiana model is based on the fact that you will collect scrap locally and sell steel locally.

The whole model is about collecting steel scrap from within 300 km of Ludhiana plant and selling steel within 300 km. What you pay more in terms of higher cost, because obviously making steel through an electric arc furnace is more expensive than making steel through a blast furnace, some of that cost disadvantage you offset through the saving on logistics costs.

Otherwise, you would spend ₹3,000, ₹4,000 moving the steel from Jamshedpur or Neelachal to the Punjab area, right? That's a model.

Second part of the model is in anticipation that there will be some sort of carbon cost in India going forward, right? Our whole objective of getting from a linear value chain to a circular value chain over a period of time is to say that even if 5%, 10% of our production is through the recycling route, it's good for us to have that part of our footprint going forward.

It makes sense from a CO2 emission point of view. CO2 emission at Ludhiana will be 0.3 tons compared to 2.2 in Jamshedpur, right?

That's the difference it has. That's the whole model as far as we are concerned.

Beyond that, I think next year this time, we will have a full year of production and we'll be able to come back with more specific numbers. The other thing to keep in mind is the Ludhiana plant was built in 2 years.

It is a ₹3,000-crore capex for a 0.85-million-ton plant, right, steelmaking and rolling plant, right? If you look at it from a capex efficiency point of view and time efficiency point of view, it is much quicker than an integrated steel plant.

There are pluses and minuses that we need to weigh, but we are quite confident this model works, and hence we are looking also at building a similar plant in the west and in the south. Like I said, you need 100, 150 acres of land, you can build it in 2 years and add 0.8, 0.9 million tons, yeah.

Soham, can we have the next question, please?

Good afternoon, everyone. First question is if you can share what is the NSR movement expected given how July is panning out and across both India, UK, Netherlands, and also a usual commentary on the cost changes that we are expecting?

Sure. I'll give you a guidance on the prices, and maybe Koushik can comment on the costs.

As far as prices are concerned, last quarter, we had guided in India ₹6,000 increase, which is pretty much what we got. This year this quarter, we are saying we'll be about ₹1,500 lower than Q1 in India.

Obviously, some areas like in long products, the drop between April and July is much more than in flat products. Flat products are also holding out a bit because the auto demand has been very strong.

Longs is impacted by construction activity slowing down during the monsoons. I think we mentioned before, while there will be some margin compression in India, because there will be additional volumes in Q2 compared to Q1, we expect the rupees crore to be better in Q2 than in Q1 in India.

As far as UK is concerned, I think we'd guided a £80 increase quarter-on-quarter, Q1 compared to Q4. I think we delivered a £90 increase.

As far as Q2 is concerned, it will be another 70 to £80 is what £80 is what we're expecting, Q2 over Q1. Doesn't all flow to the margins, because UK is fed out of substrate, and so the substrate cost will also go up to reflect market, right?

It's not that the entire £80 will flow into the bottom line. That's one mention I want to make.

As far as Netherlands is concerned, we had guided €80, and I think we delivered €70 last quarter, and this quarter, the guidance is about €10. €10 per ton increase.

As Koushik mentioned, in Europe, we are more a lot lot more impacted by contracts, because we have long-term, quarterly, some of the flow happens over a period of time. In India, I also want to add that, we are we will get some of the benefit of the auto increases that we got, because most of that was negotiated towards the end of Q1, and so all the increases, some of it is flown through into Q1 numbers, some of it will flow through into the Q2 numbers.

The 1,500 drop has factored all that in, yeah. Koushik, you want to talk on the cost side?

Yeah.

I think if I were to look at from a spread point of view, which would possibly help you better, I think we will see spread expansion in UK in the second quarter between the substrate and the HR, because we are seeing improvement in the prices. The Netherlands spread is ballpark going to remain the same.

As Naren mentioned, we're going to get some of the benefits on the revenue side in quarter two. As far as the coking coal consumption cost is concerned, I think we will be at about $184 per ton kind of levels.

I think we've been able to manage the increases on the consumption cost from a coking coal perspective, from an expense perspective. Broadly, that's the inputs that would like to give

you. Koushik, 184 is versus what in 1Q?

184 was Q4 was 160, Samita, right?

Consumption.

Consumption cost in Q2 for coking coal in India will be about $5 higher,

and

for Netherlands will be about $10 higher.

Q2

to Q1, yeah.

Got it, that's very clear. For NINL expansion, we said 48 months.

Is the zero date already say from today?

1st August. Is

1st August, okay. Got that.

The mine will be parallelly developed, or we're expecting any lead or lag?

In phases. I think if I were to talk about the expansion of mines, it's not covered in the capex that I talked about, it is in addition to that.

As Naren mentioned, that we are expecting more mine development from the three mines that are much smaller currently. It will be concurrent to the commissioning as far as the steelmaking is concerned.

Understood. On the iron ore topic itself, since 3, 4 years down the line, we will see a very massive transition, is it possible to share what could be the blended cost increase if we take today's market price, maybe at an iron ore or steel level?

Blended cost of iron ore, is it?

I just want to understand, yeah, what would be the blended cost increase say if you go by your assumption of 50% captive, 50% merchant, if you take today's price of iron ore, market price of iron ore in say 3, 4 years' time?

Yeah. Samita, have we given specific numbers?

No. I think, Sumangal, I think there are a lot of variables here, because you're talking about domestic prices, you're talking about international prices, how that's moving, the forecast on international prices depends on the mix.

I think too many variables here to give you a specific. I would suggest you sort of talk or model it in your workings through a mix.

They've given an indication of what level of mix is expected to be captive and how much we will buy. I think to get into some specific numbers at this stage is honestly very premature.

I'll give you a broader sense. Surely the cost will be higher, right, not just for us, for everyone, right?

That's one of the reasons why we feel that the value pool in the steel value chain may shift from upstream closer to downstream. Because anyone in India is going to keep buying iron ore at 120%, 130% market price and as it is, we've always said that the effective tax rate in India for raw materials is amongst the highest in the world.

There's a 65% effective tax rate anyways, even if you just buy iron ore at market, right? Then on top of that, the premiums, right?

We feel that the cost of producing steel in India will go because everyone's buying iron ore at these prices, right? Hence Tata Steel's saying that while we will keep the optionality of building upstream, as Koushik described, between our existing sites, we can go up to 48, 50 million tons, because you have 25, 26 million tons in Kalinganagar, you have 11 in Jamshedpur, you have 10 in Meramandali, then you have the Ludhiana plant, you may build two, three more like that.

There is a roadmap from 45 to 50 million tons already available with existing assets. Then on top of that, if you do a Maharashtra, you have another 15 million.

We will keep these optionalities open, because the demand of steel will continue to grow. Demand doesn't necessarily mean good profits just because you produce steel, right?

We just want to look at where should our capital go more? That's why we feel that there is a lot more value for us to put in money in the upstream, but also put more money in downstream than we put in the past.

We feel that some of the cost increases that we will see in the input cost will be offset by the cost takeouts that we are doing on efficiency that Koushik has talked about, which is a conversion cost, plus the fact that we will be scaling up plants like Neelachal and Kalinganagar, which don't have the legacy cost that we carry in Jamshedpur, etc. Plus, these are plants closer to the sea, a lot of our logistics costs come down compared to inland plants, right?

For multiple reasons, we feel that there will be a lot of cost takeouts which can offset the input cost increase, and the move down the value chain will help us focus a lot more on revenues to offset some of these cost increases. We are looking at how can you deliver an EBITDA margin close to what we are delivering today even if the iron ore prices go up.

I think that is basically our objective.

Hi, sir.

Hi,

going back to the earlier question on the European investment, right? In the last 3, 4 years, we have taken some initiatives, some are midway in terms of execution, but parallelly the policy framework that has evolved really has not been in line with what we were talking about back then.

Right? Is there a rethinking on this at all on the table that we scale back our European aspirations and put energy more in India, or is it we want to be there somewhat, may kind of question?

Ashish, let me put it this way. It need not be one or the other, right?

I think we will grow in India as we want to, and like I just described as an answer to the earlier question, grow in India doesn't necessarily mean just building more and more blast furnaces. You will build blast furnaces where you think that's the right thing to do, you'll build electric arc furnaces where you think that's the right thing to do, you will build downstream where you think that's the right thing to do, right?

We will balance it out in terms of what is the best place to put money in India even as we participate in the growth in India. As far as Europe is concerned, the fact that you are going to be penalized on CO2 stays, right?

There is a carbon tax that you're paying. Just now, as Koushik said, for Europe, we've got a 4-year extension on the free allowances, but otherwise if you don't do anything, you will pay a carbon tax in Europe, right, which will keep increasing.

Then the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism is the support that is being provided so that European steel producers are not disadvantaged, right? To some extent, it's not that the policy has changed, the policy is happening as it was said to.

What has changed for us is more the regulatory environment in Netherlands has become more and more challenging, and hence we're looking at how do we ensure we have a social license to operate, not just now, but for the future, right? That is obviously kind of what do you call it, making us reflect on what we need to do there.

One is of course to run the existing operation, and obviously, as Koushik said, before we make new investments, we need to see that there is a social license to operate and there is a return on any investment that we make. We will plan our investments in Europe, if at all, based on the regulatory environment.

The market side is certainly improved, as we said earlier. The policy support for the transition continues to be there.

Regulatory environment, particularly Netherlands, is becoming quite challenging. We will evaluate and move forward accordingly.

Just now, the only capital committed is in the UK transformation, and UK transformation, as we've explained before, if you do this transformation, we've taken out about £400 million of fixed cost in the last 3 years, and in addition to that, our opex by using local scrap and the electricity rates that we've negotiated, etc., we feel that the cost position of UK will be about 100 to £150 per ton better than it was before we did all this. In many ways, that was again the right direction to move in.

Koushik, you want to add anything?

Just to make two, three comments. One is the weightage of capital allocation on India will certainly be the one to dominate, that is one part, whether it is in the upstream volume expansion or the downstream value expansion.

The second part is, see, in Europe, the investment that we are talking about in Netherlands, etc., is not a investment which is discretionary, to speak. It's regulatory in nature in some ways because of the high carbon tax.

That is subject to three supports: the government support from funding, policy support in the way in which the transition should happen, and market support to ensure that it can sustain or make the investment investable, to speak. Today we have the market support through CBAM, through the quotas and tariffs, and EU ETS.

EU ETS has got slightly diluted, or I would say not slightly, moderately diluted because of the extension of the timeframe, and that is also demanded by many of the market players who are saying that it is not viable to not have the free allowances, and the CO2 costs are prohibitively uneconomical. Therefore, the EU ETS has got relaxed, CBAM is in force, it is getting more validated through assessments, etc., and the quotas are in place.

The market support, as Naren mentioned, is there. The government support is there, there are caps to that, and then the policy support, which is the transition policy support, and then there is a normal, ordinary course of business policy support, which is where we are seeing challenges in Netherlands in particular.

We will have to take all of these into account and then say, this decision is not just for today. It is actually going to be for the next two decades, three decades, because it's a transition process, and this is a Phase 1 of the transition.

There's a Phase 2 of the other blast furnace is also necessary. Therefore, we will take all of these into account and then come to a conclusion of whether this is the path to go forward or is there another alternative path to go forward which is not so capex-heavy, etc., etc.

I think we are in that zone just now. If these regulatory frameworks become permanent and there is no rethink, then obviously there will be a rethink at least on our side.

That is important for us to understand. India, in my view and the way we are moving ahead, is not constrained by what is happening in Europe.

India is actually focused on delivering consistent growth in a manner in which we can create sustainable value over the long term, and also to tell you that we are also looking at the investments in new technology in India, which is also to help the sustenance, whether it's the EasyMelt or the HIsarna, etc. India capital allocation story is not dependent on Europe.

It will follow its own course. It will continue to grow in both upstream and downstream.

That is the framework within which we are looking at. If the government support is not there from funding point of view in any of the geographies, which is to change the process technology, we would not have the ability to do that investment.

It is very very, very clear, and that's the optimal. The government support, policy support, market support, all these three and the social license to operate, the community support, all these have to be in the same alignment, then it makes sense for any investment to do.

I thought I'll just make a more principled comment on what you just asked, and then we'll see as to where we go. There is a time during which we will complete this assessment, including our engagement with the various stakeholders, and then come to a conclusion.

India is not affected, as I hope the NINL approval by the board yesterday endorses that point that the India capital allocation and growth story is not dependent on any other parts of the business.

Hi. Good afternoon and thanks for the opportunity.

Just on India NINL, congratulations firstly on the board approval coming through. Generally, post FY '27, for almost say 4 years, you probably won't have enough capacity to grow volumes now, given that NINL will come on stream somewhere in 2030.

What is the plan in that sense to kind of make up for this? Is there any way you can make sure that you still participate in the India growth of let's say 7% CAGR?

Even if we take NINL coming in 4, 5 years, it still implies a 3, 3.5% CAGR only, which is still much lower than market. What generally is the long-term thinking on the India growth?

Amit, I think again, I want to emphasize something, right? Our objective is not to be the largest player in India or market share by size unless it creates value, right?

We feel that we want to have a market share in chosen segments which is double that is our overall market share. That has always been our stated position.

Like so if we are 20% market share in India, we want to be 40% market share in segments which we think are more value-accretive, where it's approval-based, or where we have a good franchise like Tata Tiscon, or downstream, etc., etc. We are looking not just at the volume growth in upstream where, like I said, we have an optionality and we will grow, at the pace at which we think is right.

We also want to grow, even in the next 2, 3 years, we are adding our HR galvanizing line in Tarapur, which is going to be a state-of-the-art hot-rolled galvanizing line in India, nobody else has that, right? We are adding doubling our tinplate capacity, packaging steel capacity, which is ₹20,000 or something, ₹20,000, ₹25,000 value add, right, on the hot-rolled coil, right?

Right, then we are wanting to grow our tubes business, which is today about 1, 1.5 million to maybe about 4 million tons in the next few years. We want to grow our wire business, which is at 600,000 tons to a million tons, right?

There is a lot of growth that we're doing in downstream businesses where we have a strong position. We are the leading player in most of these businesses, and we want to grow in that, right?

The upstream growth, yeah, Neelachal, there's a Kalinganagar which we'll plan or more maybe in the next year, we will plan the Meramandali expansion from 5 to 6.5 million tons. We also have, other projects, because today we are selling about couple of million tons of sending couple of million tons of slabs to UK.

Once the EAF comes there, we can convert these slabs into plates of anything else that we want to do in India, so that's another 2 million tons of additional value-added opportunity that's available. We are looking at it from that perspective.

Next phase beyond Neelachal will be, of course, there's an opportunity in the next 3 years to build a couple of more Ludhianas. There is an opportunity in the next few years to also expand Meramandali.

Beyond that, of course, we have Maharashtra, we have Kalinganagar Phase 3, Neelachal Phase 2, etc., etc. That's that's that's the plan that we have going ahead.

Just to clarify, right, when you say that Tata Steel does not want to be the largest upstream company and you want to focus on downstream, is it because the company thinks that a new upstream greenfield steel plant in India with potential iron ore cost based on market pricing post-2030 does not justify the return profile? Because we would assume that given where steel prices are and given where iron ore prices are, it will still be profitable to set up upstream capacity in India than let's say invest in Europe.

We are not saying that we won't set up upstream because we're investing in Europe, right? We will evaluate Europe separately, we will evaluate India separately.

If there is even post-2030 with higher iron ore prices, depending on where the rupee is because we'll still be importing coal, right? Depending on all that, if there is value, of course, we are keeping that optionality, right?

We're not saying we will have an optionality of 65 million tons by then, because Maharashtra also we would have that optionality. We already have an optionality of 50, right?

We have that optionality. If it makes sense, we will certainly grow.

We feel that if earlier we spent all our money on upstream and less on downstream, we feel that that mix needs to change a lot more, because we feel that there is a lot more value for lot less capital available in the downstream, and that is closer to the customer, and that also depends on the franchises that you have and the relationships that you have, etc. It's not that there's no business case for upstream beyond 2030.

It will not be if everyone, not just Tata Steel, if everyone's going to pay 100% or more for iron ore in the market, then that takes away value. Value is going in some sense from industry to the government, right, whether in terms of royalty, whether in terms of premium, whether in terms of taxes.

That's a larger issue which we are talking to the government to say that our biggest advantage as India as a country is iron ore. If we, in some sense have a situation where the iron ore cost itself is very high for everyone for whatever reason, and part of the problem is us as private sector also, the way we are bidding for the mines.

We are in some sense passing on all the value to the government even before we start adding value, right? The other question to think about is there's a lot of upstream capacity which everyone has built, then maybe you're better off being a buyer of some of that product to convert it into higher-value products.

There are different ways to look at this industry, and it's a long value chain, yeah.

If I just may add to Pinakin, see, when you look at the sequence of growth, and I think we've said this many times, the NINL first phase, second phase, if you look at the Kalinganagar going up to 17 million tons, Bhushan or Meramandali going to 10 million tons eventually, and then Maharashtra 15, that is actually a very significant upstream growth of about 60, 65 million tons and the EAFs. The question is the world going to fall off in 2030, or is this a journey because I think when Amit talked about the CAGR growth of 7%, it's certainly not going to fall off in 2030.

It's a two-decade, three-decade process, right? The question is how do you actually sequence and grow without producing huge volumes and then at the commodity end and then look at export markets and then struggling on those fronts?

It is a question of how do you actually build the capacity with the demand in the segments where it is growing and in the areas that is growing. I think there needs to be more thoughtfulness rather than just volume growth.

Volume growth is not being stopped, and as I repeat again, it has got nothing to do with Europe. Europe is on its own defining way of doing things, and India will grow separately.

The physicality of growth will depend actually on how we create the fronts, and that's what we are working on. Our next goal is in Kalinganagar and in parallel in Meramandali.

It will come in sequence. You will get to know the way in which we are progressing.

It is not one unfolding of the envelope. As it happens, you will get a sense that between 2030, '35, you will have a lot more capacity coming in, the value-added mix coming in, it is a process.

We need to constantly work on the profitability effectively, which comes from the value also. As I said, that in next 30 months, there are a lot of downstream units which are going to come and get commissioned.

By that time, we should also be very close to another EAF, etc. I think those are the kind of things that we need to work around.

Soham, maybe we shift to the next speaker if we can't find Ritesh.

Hi. Thank you for the opportunity.

Sir, I have a clarification first before I ask my first question. On Europe, in the last quarter, there were concerns raised on coke oven.

As far as I can understand, management has clarified that you have done some changes and now the emission rates or the concerns which were raised are below industry standard. Is my understanding right, and if that's the case, does management now believe that the going concerns which were raised earlier have less weightage now than they had earlier?

I think let me again say something and then Koushik can answer further. Basically the point Koushik was making is what is called green pushes.

When you push coal into a coke oven and a green push is something where the coke is not fully cooked in some sense. Obviously in the past, we had more such pushes, than we should have had, that is clear, right?

A lot of actions were taken, and today we are at 98, 98-plus percent lower than what we were before. The requirement in Netherlands was to minimize green pushes, but now that is being more specific to say there should be zero green push, right?

Which our point is, yes, we are close to zero, but there's no coke oven anywhere operating with zero green push, right? A lot of work has been done to make sure that we are close to zero.

That problem, we feel is at a stage where it is better than at least anyone in Europe, forget anywhere else, right? From the authorities' point of view, given the problems that we've had in the past or the issues of the past, the whole thing is about not having a coke oven operate and to close a coke and gas plant.

I think that is where we are. That discussion is going on, that has not gone away.

In some sense, that we would have done anyway if we were transitioning into a DRI-EAF process route, and the whole plan originally was to make that change by 2032 and 2035, etc. Now with the current conversations with the government, with the authorities, etc., it's more to say can you do it in 2028, 2029 or whatever is technically the most appropriate time, and run the blast furnaces using coke that you can buy from the market rather than making it locally.

That's the conversation which is going on. Koushik, I think explains it.

That's fine.

Yeah.

No, that's actually the case. It would have got closed or transitioned out of coke ovens in the ordinary course if the DRI-EAF comes through.

It's a preponement and in a manner where the compliance level are as much as technically feasible to do.

Hi. Thanks for giving the opportunity.

My question was mostly on the depreciation side. We had guided for increased in depreciation for this quarter as well as for FY '27.

Can you just throw some light on what was that about? Thank you.

Sure. As you know that our mining assets will come up for re-auction or bidding in 2030, and there are significant amount of assets in our mining locations: beneficiation plants, then other infrastructure assets, pipelines, etc.

Because there is a defined time now, 2030, where it will be re-auctioned with a right of first refusal to Tata Steel, we are actually accelerating the depreciation of these mining assets on the PPEs. It will be about ₹300 crores a quarter, ₹1,200 crores every year additional depreciation, in line so that there is not a big hit in 2030.

It is at a faster amortization, given the point. It's not that the useful life assessment has been done, but there's a regulatory need also, and that's what we have taken.

If we get back those assets, we'll be fair valuing it later on at a later point in time.

Hi. Good afternoon everyone and thanks for the opportunity.

Just a couple of questions from my side. Something very interesting you mentioned in your opening remarks about shipbuilding and data center.

Just wanted to understand what kind of grades we are focusing there, and whether it is for domestic shipbuilding, defense, or we are targeting more export grade steel. Also for data center, if you can highlight a bit more, that is my first question.

Yeah. On shipbuilding, basically with the Kalinganagar plant, which has one of the best hot strip mills in the country, at least for the sizes that is up to 25 thick and 2 2 m wide, we can produce pretty much all grades, including the very high tensile kind of grades, etc.

For shipbuilding sector, you need to go through an approval process. There's Lloyds and there's ABB and there are a few bodies, independent and international bodies who approve your material for use in shipbuilding.

We've got those approvals. I think while the volumes are still small, like I said, we always like to be in the more discerning sectors, because that's how you can protect yourself from the commodity cycles to some extent which we always face.

I think we'll be doing about 100,000 tons this year to all these grades, and largely for the domestic market, to go back to your question. Then we can take it to about half a million tons.

I think the more important thing is once we get an entry into these sectors, get the approvals, just like in auto also we started small, we can always grow. Just now the focus is domestic market, but we can also look at international markets.

As far as data centers is concerned, when you build data centers, apart from the regular steels that you would supply, data centers also have a lot of storage solutions, and so even if you look at a company like Nucor, couple of years back, if you followed it, they spent $3 billion buying a storage solutions company for data centers. Our interest is more to get into the steels that data centers use, both in the construction of it as well as in the storage solutions that they need inside.

We have quite a few of the downstream value-added products which can tap into the data center market. Because basically what's happening is as more and more money is spent on these businesses, a lot of it can flow to steel, because that's going to be an important component of some of these investments, yeah.

This is not just in India, data centers we're doing a lot of work in Europe as well. Between our colleagues in Europe and India, we have doing a lot of work to not only track the steels that are used, how do we tap into that market in an organized way.

It's not just about selling the basic steel product, but more about going into the solutions which help these companies building and investing in data centers. It's a growing segment and we want to be a big part of it.

Thank you, Soham. I think we've answered most of the chat questions.

There's just one on TS UK, which I will ask since this seems to be a concern, that in view of the ongoing or the recent nationalization of assets which has happened at UK, will Tata Steel participate and take up any of such opportunities?

Answer is no, but maybe Koushik can.

This nationalization bill or act that has come up in UK was in response to the situation in British Steel and in Rotherham, where there was an electrical steel which incidentally was Tata Steel which actually sold. If you look at UK steel industry, the things which are getting nationalized were sold by Tata Steel 10 years back.

If that was the strategy, then we wouldn't have sold it. Therefore, we don't intend to participate.

We are just now and will be focused only on our asset in Port Talbot, where we are building the EAF.

Thank you. With this, we will end.

Thank you very much for all your questions and your participation. We will connect again next quarter.

Thank you and bye.

Thank you all. Thanks for joining.

Thank you.