Thank you, operator, and a very good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to JSW Steel's earnings call for Q2 FY27.

We have with us today the management team represented by Mr. Jayant Acharya, Joint Managing Director and CEO; Mr.

G.S. Rathore, Chief Operating Officer; Mr.

Arun Maheshwari, Director of Commercial and Marketing; and Mr. Swayam Saurabh, the CFO.

We will start with opening remarks by Mr. Acharya and then open the floor to Q&A.

Over to you, Mr. Acharya.

Thank you, Ashwin. Good evening, everyone.

The global economy has remained resilient despite continued geopolitical and inflationary pressures, with IMF upgrading its global forecast for 2026 to 3.1% and maintaining its outlook for '27 at 3.4%. Growth is being supported by AI-led investments and improving manufacturing activity, although the Middle East conflict and its impact on energy prices and supply chains and elevated bond yields remain key pressure points.

The US economy has been supported by strong consumer spending despite inflationary pressures. In China, export strength has supported manufacturing, while domestic demand has been weak.

Recent policy measures are expected to support investment and infrastructure demand. India continues to stand out as the fastest-growing major economy with structural growth drivers.

The IMF and RBI have upgraded their FY27 GDP growth forecast upward to 7% and 7.1% respectively. Industrial activity, exports, and automotive demand have been strong despite global headwinds, indicating strong economic activity.

Strong public and private investments across sectors continue to support the capex cycle. However, elevated energy prices and inflationary pressures arising from an uneven monsoon are key risks to monitor.

The RBI has adopted a more hawkish stance and hiked policy rates recently. Coming to the steel industry, the Indian steel consumption has continued to grow, with quarter two seeing a growth of 7% and H1 seeing a growth of 7.5%.

India's total steel exports and imports for H1 are broadly balanced. However, on a finished steel basis, India was a net importer.

Domestic steel demand is expected to grow between 7 to 8% in FY27. In China, steel production and consumption both continue to decline.

During January to September, production decreased by about 3%, while consumption contracted by about 4%. While finished steel exports are down by 2%, steel exports overall, including semis from China, are up by 3.3% during this period.

This is due to elevated exports primarily of the semis which I mentioned. On the sustainability, we continue to make progress on our objective of becoming net carbon-neutral by 2050.

To promote resource circularity and reduce dependence on imported scrap, we are setting up processing centers across India. The first 0.5-million-ton center at Khopoli where we have commissioned the baler during the quarter two, and the shredder will be commissioned during the quarter three, by end of the quarter three.

During H1 '27, the scrap utilization increased by more than 10% year-on-year, reducing the carbon footprint in our operations. We continue the transition to green mobility and have deployed 134 electric buses, 98 electric cars across Vijayanagar, Dolvi, and Salem till date.

Our sustainability efforts have been recognized with the 2026 World Steel Steelie Award for excellence in clean steel production, and the ICC Platinum Award for occupational health and safety excellence. On the operating performance, despite a challenging geopolitical backdrop and the resulting pressures on supply chains and input costs, JSW Steel delivered a strong operational performance.

Crude steel production and consolidated production and India operations were the highest ever at 7.27 million and 7.07 million tons respectively, both growing by about 5% YoY. The blast furnace 3 at Vijayanagar has ramped up well following light-up in the end of June, reaching about 90% utilization during the quarter.

The JVML operations achieved record quarterly production. However, our India operations achieved a utilization of about 88%.

Our consolidated sales were the highest at 7.46 million tons, growing at 13% YoY. Indian operations sales were also the highest at 7.27 million tons, which grew by 14%, driven by a demand recovery in the second half of Q2.

We achieved our highest ever domestic sales at 6.29 million tons, up by 12%, outpacing the Indian market growth. Our focus on value-added steels helped us to deliver record sales of value-added and special products of 4.11 million tons, up 11%.

Our focus on strategic sectors continued. Institutional sales grew by 15% YoY.

Auto sector sales were the highest ever, growing by 36% YoY. Sales to the appliance and renewables sectors also grew by healthy 28% and 14% respectively.

Coming to the financial results, in quarter two JSW Steel reported consolidated revenue of ₹54,486 crores, an adjusted EBITDA of ₹9,941 crores with an EBITDA margin of 18%. PAT stood at ₹5,359 crores.

The quarter was impacted by high cost and supply chain disruptions. Overall input costs were higher, particularly coking coal, which increased by about $10 a ton, a bit lower than our earlier guidance of $12 to $15 for this quarter.

Iron ore costs were also slightly higher, among other input costs as well. Realizations fell quarter-on-quarter, mainly on account of long steel prices.

Performance at our overseas operations improved sequentially, mainly driven by better realizations. Last quarter we commissioned a vacuum tank degasser at Ohio.

This will enable us to produce higher grade steel, especially API grades. Quarter two EBITDA at Ohio increased quarter-on-quarter, although operations were impacted by a scheduled maintenance shutdown in September.

Operations at the plate and pipe mill in Texas were also impacted by a shutdown taken for the upgradation of the plate mill in September. However, EBITDA was sequentially higher on higher prices.

The US operations together generated EBITDA of about 19 million US dollars. The Italian rail mill reported 7 million, flat versus quarter one.

Our net debt stands at ₹44,482 crores, with the leverage gearing improving further to 1.28 and 0.39 respectively. Revenue acceptances stood at US $2 billion.

Capex spent for the first half of this financial year was ₹11,136 crores, and we expect to meet the guidance of ₹22 to ₹24,000 crores of capex during this financial year. On our joint venture, we have provided the performance details about JSW JFE Steel.

JSL had a sale of 0.92 million tons and a healthy EBITDA of ₹1,136 crores. There was a PAT loss due to a stamp duty provision related to the BPSL transaction.

Excluding this, the PAT was positive. Let me update you on the growth projects so far.

We are making steady progress towards our goal of reaching 78 million tons of capacity in India by '32, including our joint ventures. Steelmaking projects at Dolvi, Utkal, JVML, and Kadapa are progressing well.

The slurry pipeline in Odisha remains on track to be commissioned by March '27. Our various downstream projects across locations are also progressing well.

Today, the board has approved additional projects. Let me briefly take you through them.

Approval for the Phase 2 of 5 million at JSW Utkal in Odisha. This will take the Odisha JSW Utkal capacity to 10 million.

Under construction, the 5 million ton is already under construction. The second phase just announced, the construction will begin.

The project Phase 1 is expected to be commissioned by quarter three of FY30, and Phase 2 by quarter one of FY31. We have added an 8-million-ton pellet plant at JVML Vijayanagar site.

This will enable us to use locally sourced iron ore fines versus costlier lumps. We will also set up an additional converter and caster for the JVML Phase 2 expansion, which will create additional melting and casting capacity to take the overall crude steel at Vijayanagar location to 25 million tons.

At the ongoing Dolvi Phase 3 project, we are adding a caster and plate processing facility. This will upgrade the capacity of the CSP mill to 7 million tons and enable us to process additional slabs into hot rolled coil and plates.

On the downstream side, we are expanding our Vasind operations with a CRM complex of 1.8 million tons per annum. Commissioning is expected by quarter two of FY30.

On our strategy to enhance our raw material security, we continue to remain focused. As we completed the acquisition of the MDR coking coal deposit in Mozambique in March '26 and are focused on rapidly bringing it into production.

The board has approved further capex for a mine capacity of approximately 9 million tons of clean, prime hard coking coal. Production will commence in CY28 and ramp up gradually in subsequent years.

Further capex has been approved for developing our captive iron ore mines and coking coal mines and washeries in India. We currently have 25 iron ore mines, of which 13 are operational, with work underway to operationalize the remainder as well and expand some of the operating mines.

The three new mines in Karnataka are now expected to be commissioned in quarter four of FY27. This will provide additional capacity of around 4 million tons, taking the overall capacity in Karnataka to about 15 million tons per annum of iron ore.

Our four iron ore mines in Goa can provide approximately 6 million tons of iron ore. We are working to get our coking coal washeries at Parbatpur and Dugda operational by next year.

This will enable us to process domestic coking coal from our captive mines and linkages with BCCL, and should provide us usable clean coking coal of approximately 3.5 million tons per annum. In our JSL joint venture, we and our partner JFE Steel have approved expansion of steel facilities by 5 million ton per annum.

This will take the total capacity of the plant to 9.5 million tons and is planned to be commissioned by FY31. In the last quarter, we had reported our capex pipeline of ₹1.3 lakh crores to be spent over the next four to five years.

With these new announcements, our total capex plan now stands at ₹1.48 lakh crores. This capex will be spent over the next five to six years.

This capex will be funded from internal accruals for most of the part, and we have a strong balance sheet and headroom available to support our growth plans. JSW One platform, online platform in which we have a 66% equity stake, saw steel volumes grow by 53% YoY, and the GMV rose by 77% to ₹6,989 crores in quarter two.

Credit offerings contributed to ₹2,400 crores approximately of GMV, up 91%, and the platform continued to deliver positive EBITDA. Looking ahead, we expect volumes to increase in Q3 with stronger production on the back of full production of Vijayanagar BF3 and JVML operations.

Coking coal costs are expected to rise by about $25 in quarter three, in line with the sharp increase in prices in the latter half of Q2. Iron ore costs are expected to be marginally higher in quarter three.

Domestic steel demand will remain strong and is expected to grow by 7 to 8% in FY27, driven by public and private capex, manufacturing, and automotive demand. We are on track to meet our production and sales guidance given for the year.

On concluding side, I would like to say that the government's recent draft National Steel Policy 2047 envisions India steel consumption to reach 505 million ton by 2047, and a steelmaking capacity of 600 million tons, with a production of 530 million tons. While India's current per capita steel consumption stands at 116 kg, well below the global average of about 210 kg, it is projected to reach about 300 kg by 2047.

This underscores the significant headroom for a long-term demand growth. Against this backdrop, JSW Steel is ideally positioned to accelerate growth and play a defining role in India's growth story, while remaining focused and disciplined on capital allocation and value creation.

We are happy to take questions. Thank you.

Hi. Good evening, everyone, and thanks for the opportunity.

Congratulations for a good set of numbers. Two questions from my side, sir.

While we are announcing steel capacity expansion, just wanted to understand the thoughts on the equivalent iron ore integration. Understand that we have mines, but wanted your thoughts on beneficiating the locally available iron ore, because some of the iron ore we have is of relatively lower quality.

Also wanted to understand if the option of importing iron ore is open, and how much iron ore we imported in H1 FY27? That is the first question.

I will request my colleague Arun to answer this.

Hi. Regarding iron ore, yeah, definitely, the way India is growing our iron ore requirement is going up and I think for JSW, we are all set.

As of now, our EC capacities for all operational mines is about 42 million ton. That is one part of it.

The other operational mines which are likely to come up, which are under different stages of exploration, I think captively we'll be able to cover up to 50% of the requirement as of today. As we develop processing of our low-grade iron ore in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, the self-reliance on the iron ore sourcing will further increase from here on.

Far as India's overall demand is concerned, imports remains an option. The way iron ore prices are likely to correct in the years to come, probably this will be one area which can be closely monitored as an option to it.

The development of iron ore mines in Odisha, in Gadchiroli area, in Andhra Pradesh and other parts of India, it is okay. It won't be a major challenge as we look forward.

We will continue to develop our assets. Just to add to this, continue to develop our assets which we have, as we mentioned, 25 iron ore mines, 13 are operational, the balance will be operationalized.

We will continue to bid strategically for new assets which come up. Our idea is to take our raw material security and iron ore also to the next level, and we'll remain focused on that.

That's helpful. The second question is essentially on realization.

As you alluded to the cost guidance for maybe Q3, is it possible to give us an indication of going by the spot prices and the negotiations you might be having with automotive players? What kind of realization increase we can expect?

Particularly if you can highlight the feelers that you're getting from auto guys?

Let me put it this way, that the price is basically following the demand. In the last quarter, if you recall, in June and July, we had seen a price dip, especially starting with long products, given the Middle East war environment and a weaker quarter because of monsoon.

However, as the monsoon eased in second half of the quarter, the demand picked up. That enabled us to increase the prices, recovered the prices to some extent, which we lost.

A price increase in the month of October as well, will fully get reflected in October-December quarter. Having said that, we also are mindful that the costs are going up.

As we guided, that coking coal will go up by $25, iron ore will go up also to some extent, and other costs like zinc, tin, ferroalloys, all input costs have seen an increase. However, our expectation is that we will be able to offset the cost and add incrementally to the margin over Q2.

The auto sector negotiations are ongoing, and we'll not be able to give you an indicator as of now for the next quarter. The previous quarter auto sector negotiations are closed.

Okay. What was the price differential that you got?

Maybe I will request our team to give it to you offline.

Sir. That's okay.

Thank you so much and all the best.

Thank you.

Thanks for the opportunity and congratulations on a good set of numbers. My question is on the capital structure of the Sambalpur JV.

Basically, when looking at the current debt profile and plus the incremental debt with this capex announcement of 5 million tons, it appears that net debt to EBITDA could grow as high as 10 times at the peak capex. My question is whether the balance sheet risk is fully run by the JV or is there any ring-fencing that is done to the level of JSW Steel from these liabilities?

Swayam, I'll request Swayam to answer your question. Yeah.

Thanks, Jayant. We don't believe net debt to EBITDA will go to 10x.

We do recognize that during project phase, net debt to EBITDA could go slightly higher. We believe that with the kind of cash this business has generated also this year, we will be able to comfortably get through it.

We have, by design, ring-fenced JSW Steel, and we believe that will remain intact.

Just to add to this, there is no concern on the growth plan and our ability to manage that. The site is ready for expansion and it therefore makes sense for us to take up that expansion now.

The market is providing us the platform to do it. We are quite confident that we will be able to carry out the expansion in a financially prudent manner.

Noted. Thank you.

Hi. Thank you for the opportunity.

My first question is on the coking coal with coking coal already being at near $270 per ton because of Chinese mining issues, and we have further Australian cyclones coming up in the coming quarters, which will eventually impact the coke prices. How do we see coking coal market panning out and the impact of that on our margins, if at all, for the second half of FY27?

That's my first question.

Coking coal market is elevated from the lows what we had seen in the last couple of quarters. Then that's largely because of there was couple of accidents in China and Mongolia is not able to ship out some of the cargoes to China.

These were the reasons why China has been buying into the market, which we have seen in the last couple of weeks. Again, the Chinese buying has gone down.

Having said that, these elevated prices are not applicable only to one particular country or a company. It is applicable to the entire world and the entire steel industry.

If the cost goes up, it will be applicable to almost every company across. It will not have a specific negative impact on any particular company.

Having said that, that cost will go up for sure if the prices remain this elevated. Then this quarter we have given a guidance that coming quarter would be around $25 more or less coking coal cost going up, which is factored in our team.

Just to add to this, our focus, as we said, to use more domestic coking coal, and that's why in the opening commentary we did highlight that we are adding washeries, focusing on blending domestic coking coal, so that would give us a cost advantage and be able to some extent offset the higher imported cost.

Got it. My second question is on the current net debt at the BPSL level.

How should we look at it going forward as well? Because in our valuations, we do value JSW and BPSL separately.

How should we look at it?

The current debt at the JV level will progressively go down, and we have done next phase of expansion, which would mean some debt will come up. We have done a calibrated simulation on what could be peak net debt.

As I answered earlier, we remain confident that while the net debt to EBITDA will remain elevated for some time, but the JV will be able to complete the project without any unexpected stress.

What is the current net debt level at the JV as of September '26, if you can guide on that?

I will ask our Investor Relations team to provide this information one-to-one.

Sure, thank you.

Good evening. Thanks for the chance.

First question is on the capex. JVML Phase 2 and Utkal Phase 2, similar 5-million-ton capacity, but almost ₹10,000 crores higher for JVML.

Just want to understand, is there any difference in the configuration or some backward integration capex also included?

We had guided, if you remember, when we started our Phase 1, the Phase 1 cost of Odisha plus the Phase 2 cost, if you add both these together, our total cost for 10 million is about ₹48,000 crores. Look at it from that perspective, and then compare.

Secondly, the Phase 2 does not have a hot strip mill, which JVML has.

Understood. That helps.

All right. Sir, second on the prices.

If we can get what are the NSR or maybe long, flat prices in October versus 2Q what we've seen? Also, if you could explain what's happening in the long prices last quarter.

In the call, you shared that long price correction is overdone, and it's gone through the roof after that. Just want your sense on the volatility in the long steel prices in India.

The long steel prices have historically been volatile during the monsoon period. This time, it was more impacted by the Middle East crisis as well, the availability of labor that impacted the construction overall.

That resulted in a sharp fall in long steel prices. Post moderation of the monsoon and some confidence returning back to the market, the construction activity has picked up.

The capex in June and July, the public capex by the government of India in June and July was quite strong, and that has also resulted in August-September uptick in the overall economic activity of construction. That's why you see a better pricing environment.

I would say that from a demand perspective, in the second half of this year we will see continued growth of long steel, especially after the festivities, on the back of the public capex as well as now improving private capex. On the hot rolled side, the flat steel in particular, the price while it corrected to some extent, was not as sharp, and the prices have now recovered from the drop which we had seen in the interim in the quarter two.

We feel that the prices now reflect a reasonable number, gives the steel industry the ability to be able to maintain margins to invest back in the capex which we have targeted.

Understood. If I may just squeeze in one more question on iron ore.

The prices in India is fairly flattish and not correcting in line with what is happening in the seaborne market. Just want to understand, is there any supply issue in the country, or we should expect prices in India to catch up with the weakness in global market?

In dollar terms, if you look at it, yes, definitely, there is a weakness in the international market. Then if rupee terms, if you have to convert that in the basis the current dollar parity, more or less the international prices is also flattish, if I have to look at that way.

The other thing is that in domestic market, the iron ore supply has not increased as much as what the demand has been growing in the last one quarter or two quarters. That's where it is playing out a bit.

On top of it, there has been a big derailment in NMDC Chhattisgarh mines, wherein the supply has been disrupted for almost now 25 20, 25 days, which has impacted a large chunk of iron ore availability. On top of it, monsoon has been very erratic in few parts of the mines, especially in Central India and parts of Odisha, wherein the movement has impacted.

Given all this stuff, there has been a slight disruption of iron ore supplies, which is a normal phenomenon in this time of the year because of the monsoons. Going forward, I think generally, it looks to be more flattish at this level because it was elevated much earlier than what it was expected.

We feel it would be more or less flattish going forward.

Given the international prices which have corrected directionally, usually the domestic industry will also catch up after the supply bottlenecks which are there post-monsoon improves. We do expect a softer iron ore environment as we go into the next few quarters.

Got it. That's very helpful.

Thanks, and all the best.

Thank you very much, sir. I have three questions, and all of them are related to the capex program.

My first question is on capex. When these projections on costs were given or this projects were built out, I assume it would have been early this year or last year, the currency was at a certain level and the currency has seen a meaningful depreciation.

Is there a risk to this capex numbers being increased as we build in the higher currency over the next few years?

Pinakin, we do factor in normative depreciation of rupee equivalent or forward cost coverage equivalent cost over the period of capex in the cost which we announce in INR terms. I don't see that as a new risk.

Got it. My second question, Mr.

Acharya, is that JSW would start working, or effectively is working on four simultaneous sites for blast furnace steel and five including Kadapa. I don't think in history in India we have had four or five steel plants being built simultaneously.

What are the constraints you see in terms of your supply chain or your EPC contractors being able to execute these projects? The company can provide land and capital, but what are the potential issues you see at the supply chain execution level?

The question is valid because there are multiple sites, contractors, labor, manpower have to be enabled. The positive which we are seeing in the East is that most of the labor and the workers earlier used to come from the East to our projects in South and West.

Post the COVID, there is a tendency to be more towards home. The availability of labor therefore in the East of the country is better.

We see that JSW Utkal expansions are not really seeing much of a labor shortfall. From a contractor standpoint, if I have to look at it, I think we are trying to enable various contract ecosystem to be able to come up and work alongside our existing contractors, which is working well.

We expect that to be able to add to the overall contract manpower which they would bring in. The BF, blast furnace, also, we have a system that like our blast furnace 5 ended in Vijayanagar, the entire team was shifted to and the contractor was shifted to blast furnace number six.

Similarly, when we are doing the Utkal Phase 1 and Phase 2, we are doing that in a seamless manner so that the deployment and redeployment is reduced and it goes on seamlessly. That also to some extent enables us to keep the labor, keep the contractors in place as we expand our capacities.

While your question is valid, I think the company has taken various steps to improve the availability of contractors and labors, and we are quite confident that we'll be able to carry out the work across all these sites. Mr.

Rathore will add one more point. Just one second.

Yes, sir.

See, over the year, we have been able to develop the expertise to do in-house mini projects. Dolvi and Vijayanagar being more of a parental plant will give this trained manpower to all these new locations.

Kadapa being closer to Vijayanagar will be taken care. By the time we finish Dolvi next year, the people will get transferred there.

We have already mobilized key people from these two locations to take care of as far as supervision from JSW's side is concerned. That kind of expertise is developed.

As far as contractor is concerned, we are trying to identify two or three large contracts, which will take care of blast furnace and steel melt shop, which are the larger one. The smaller projects like hot strip mill and rest of the thing will be able to do by Tier 2, Tier 3.

We have worked very hard on trying to solve the softer issues, which will help us to retain the manpower for these executions.

Got it. My last question, sir, is that with the board announcements today, the crude steel addition is roughly around 26 million tons including Dolvi that the company is starting work on.

We have not yet seen a commensurate announcement or increase in the value-added steel, HSMs and cold rolling mills and so on and so forth. When should we have visibility on capex on the downstream facilities in respect to the upstream that is being put at this point of time?

If you recall, in the Vijayanagar complex, we have already announced our electrical steel expansion projects. We had announced the joint venture through CRGO both for Nashik and Vijayanagar.

Now we have announced the downstream project in Vasind. In the earlier quarters, we have announced expansion in Khopoli downstream facility, and also in Rajpura.

We are continuing to expand our downstream operations. You will also see more downstream capacity build-up as we go into the subsequent quarters.

Also keep in mind that the value-added and specialty products which we are looking at also includes products from the hot rolled and hot rolled sections. Kadapa hot rolled section, which is one of the widest in India, will also give us the kind of special products which we need.

The Raigarh expansion which we are doing right now will have a configuration of rail and sections again on the value-added side. Our 2,600 wide CSP in Dolvi also gives us the necessary width to be able to actually meet the plate requirement, and at a much lower cost point.

The special product category is getting slowly increased, and we will continue to add more value-added downstream facilities as well.

Got it. Thank you very much, sir.

Hi, thank you for the opportunity. Just continuing on the capex, right?

Initially, I believe you had a capex plan of what, 1.26 trillion, and now it's been to about 1.48. Just wanted to understand, how confident are you, considering that the current steel cycle is still quite robust, very supportive, but we have seen in the past by a couple of other peers that if the steel cycle goes against you, the entire stress comes on your balance sheet at the end of the day.

How confident are you, because the time frame is just 5 to 6 years at the end of the day? Just want to get your understanding on that.

Your question is the confidence on being able to manage the capex cycle?

Manage the balance sheet. Manage our balance sheet if

the markets are there. I think I'll request Swayam to add.

This capex build do not rely on a very significantly positive, let's say, steel prices. If you look at our current scales and add Dolvi, which will be available next year, and take a normal pricing or even a stress pricing environment for 1 or 2 years, you'll realize that we are still generating enough cash, which is what we would need on an average, ₹25 to ₹30,000 crore a year, and that could largely be self-funded.

Any temporary cash gap, given we right now stand at 1.28 times net debt to EBITDA, gives us enough room to temporarily increase debt if needed. Overall, at this stage, we remain very confident.

This capex plan do not rely on very positive, let's say, steel price cycle for a long period.

Also keep in mind that the opportunity which India is offering today in terms of the demand and in terms of the growth potential, it would make sense for us to be able to take up the projects and execute in time so that we are able to meet the demand which the country is forecasting. The new policy by 2047 is also forecasting a demand of 500 million tons and a capacity of 600 million tons.

Directionally, what you see in India from that standpoint, requires capacities to be set up. We are quite confident.

Our balance sheet is very strong. We do not see any concern from liquidity.

We have enough headroom available to be able to complete the projects.

If I can just add one more thing. If you look at our current quarter results, despite the quarter being almost 6,500 crore of capex, we have actually generated free cash to bring our debt down.

This ability to generate free cash only will sustain. Prices could come down, EBITDA margin could come down a bit, but we gonna add volumes next year, Dolvi Phase 3 will come, and absolute cash generation ability, we are fairly confident about.

Right,

that's actually quite helpful, sir. Sir, my second question is pertaining to one of your remark in the opening remark, where you said that water can be a bit challenge, because if I read a couple of annual reports from one of the group companies, they have clearly mentioned that the water charges as a raw material, basically, water as a raw material, the charges are expected to go over 2.5x in next decade.

Now, you having extensive manufacturing facilities across India, can this be a challenge or it's adequately covered?

I don't think we mentioned water in our current opening remarks, but water requirement in the steel plant is a key requirement. We are taking all steps to see that the water linkages are established in each of the location to meet our demand.

Rathore, you would like to add any other point? The cost is not so material which will impact our steel overall cost in a big way.

Right, as far as our specific water consumption per ton of steel produced is lowest, probably for the best of the company. There are a lot of initiatives are being taken at each location to recycle the water, RO plants and recycling, reuses.

We are tying up with each location the nearest water resource and reservoir to take care of the future requirements. So,

Like in our Vijayanagar facility, we have created a reservoir, just to give you an example, which has storage capability for 300 days of operation now. We are taking steps and measures having pipeline linkages to our plants to ensure that water is available.

Excluding Vijayanagar, do you have an ample sanction from the state government? Because water is practically not a fungible between the two facilities at the end of the day.

Yes, we have.

Okay. Our projects

are set up with those permissions from the state, yes.

Okay. Perfect.

Thank you so much, sir.

Hi, sir. Thanks for the opportunity.

My first question is on incremental cost levers. Probably, there might be several variables.

Would you like to flesh out top three variables that one should watch out for? Specifically, my interest would be on the coking coal mine.

If you could highlight what would be the cash cost, delivered cost, equivalent grade premium pricing and hence, the cost differential on back of that, that's one. I think besides that, the sizing of the furnaces, I think it's quite larger as compared to historically what we have.

Third is basically probably on the logistics side, and fourth on the RE side. If you could put some numbers over here, it would be great, sir.

That's the first question.

We'll not be able to give you coking coal cost and details right now. The coking coal, as what we have already forecast, in Mozambique, we're taking up the capacity to 9 million tons of hard coking coal capability.

Illawarra has 2 million tons of hard coking coal capability. That takes care most of our requirement for PLV coal for up to the end of this decade.

Domestic coking coal, we continue to develop. We'll be able to generate about 3.5 million, as we indicated.

These put together, we would be roughly having a captive linkage of about 15 million tons of coking coal, which will provide us adequate security. Also, the cost structure, both for the domestic coal and for Mozambique, is expected to be lower than the international prices.

On the other cost lever, which is the larger blast furnaces, they are all of larger volumes and therefore have inherently better benefits, better productivity, lower fuel rate, less manpower. Those are more cost-effective compared to the smaller ones which may have been there in the older operations.

The third one you had asked was with respect to, one was largest coking coal, larger

Logistics and RE.

RE

Logistics and RE.

RE we have already commissioned about more than 1,000 gigawatts megawatts. We are in the process of commissioning the balance 1.5 gigawatts which has already been approved, we will be 2.5 gigawatts plus on RE.

Our aim is to convert as much of the thermal coal which we are using today to non-fossil, and we would continue to add more renewable capacity, either through offtake in the market or by setting up through a joint captive system. On the logistics side, the slurry pipeline, we have already given you details earlier in Odisha.

That project is likely to get completed by March '27, and that would give us benefit. Our pipe conveyor at Vijayanagar also, with some more clearances, is able to operate at higher capacity than earlier, that also would improve our logistics.

We have built in through our own and through our other companies a railway wagons through our own schemes which the railways have been announcing, which gives us better control over the railway wagon movement across the country. We continue to take steps to further improve logistics like electric vehicles for closed-circuit supplies from the plant to nearby destinations.

Those will also be added on as we go.

Sir, I'll just try the other way around. Sir, hypothetically, if safeguard duties are taken out, it's not renewed, do all these measures more than adequately cover up for the loss of safeguard impact?

This and some others as well, because we continue to take, we just discussed the value-added downstream. Your larger furnaces, your raw material security, your value-added and special products, our logistics savings which we will do, all these put together are structurally improving our cost profile, and that should be able to shield us from any kind of challenges which we may face from the threat of imports.

Sure, that's helpful. Sir, my second question is, would you be more constructive on flats or long pricing incrementally, say, 3 months out?

I think specifically, I'm asking this question because longs, to what we understand, there is an element of higher electricity tariffs in certain pockets in the country, and it is impacting the economics of induction furnaces and electric arc furnaces, and hence, potentially some supply curve disruption, which could be pumping up long product prices. If we had to take this particular variable into account, how are we looking at flats versus long prices?

Primarily long products, the primary industry, this integrated steel producers are probably in the range of 30, 35%. The balance, 65, 70% is with the secondary sector.

Therefore, there are many small producers across the country. Therefore, we have seen more volatility, let us say, in the long product prices.

Going forward, our aim is to be able to add value in long products where we see that they will be more value-adding in nature, like the beam plants which we're setting up, or the rail mill which we are setting up. We see value.

Steel construction is shifting a lot to beam-based construction or plate-based construction. We are trying to be in those products in addition to the normal long products which we have.

We're also adding capacities in alloy steel where we see value and where we see demand. On the long space, these are the areas we will focus on.

Flat steel continues to be our mainstay, and the growth in flat steels based on the automotive, based on institutional sales, appliances, renewable, you see a lot of flat steel demand. Flat steel remains area of focus.

On the price side, it'll be very difficult to give you a kind of a forecast as to which one will be better as we go along. This is the focus which JSW Steel has between flat and longs.

Sir, just last quick one. Is evacuation a problem either at Dolvi or at Vijayanagar on finished steel products?

As of now, no. In the eastern side, we had some challenges with respect to the raw material rake availability because of some rakes being diverted for power sector.

Other than that, we have not faced any challenges.

This was helpful. Thank you so much, and all the very best.

Sir. Thank you for giving me the opportunity.

Just some bookkeeping questions. Sir, can you tell us what would be the stamp duty amount that you had paid in Q2 for JSL?

The stamp duty impact JSL has taken is ₹276 crores. This is on best estimate basis.

Sir, one more question was on the debt side. Can you tell us how much of our debt would be dollar-denominated?

How much of it is basically hedged?

We historically followed a policy of covering 12 months forward. Off late, we have increased our total hedge position.

In gross terms, our dollar exposure, which was over $6 billion beginning of the year last year, has actually come down dramatically to actually closer to 3 and a half, 3.6 billion dollar.

From $6 billion, you are saying we are now at $3, $3.5 billion.

Over $3.5 billion.

We have repaid a lot of our expensive debt during the first half of this year. If you would have noticed, our gross debt has gone down by more than ₹29,000 crores.

Expensive debt has been paid out in dollar terms.

Also, $500 million

Another $500 million bond we have repaid in this month, in the month of October, which was due in April. We have preponed that as per the contract option available to us.

Okay. Thank you.

We are reducing our exposure, balancing our exposure on the forex side.

Understood, sir. Thank you.

Hi. Thanks for the opportunity.

While you aim to kind of expand capacities to 50 and 78 eventually, I just wanted to check how will your product mix change? Will it remain what it is now, or you expect it to change more towards some other products?

Between flat and longs, is that your question, or downstream and

Not just flats and longs, but also between HR, CR and all. If you could just share broad thoughts over there.

Yeah.

From a product availability perspective, we are trying to basically map out the products which India would require, and thereby put capacities which would be able to meet that demand. On the downstream space, I think as Pinakin had also asked, on the downstream space, we see growth in the value-added segment being quite strong.

I think the growth is in double digits. Capacity additions, we are trying to see that we are able to add capacities to be able to meet those demands.

Specialty steel, we have already told you, CRNO electrical steel, transformer steel and CRGO, because of the electrification and because of the shift towards more electricity, these will be in strong demand. We are putting up capacities to be able to meet those demands.

Tinplate, we are adding capacity because we are seeing packaging also moving to sustainable packaging, and we are adding capacity on those as well. On bearing steel, we see demand in India as well as international, we have added some capacities in Salem, debottlenecked some of our lines to be able to produce more bearing steel.

The BMM asset which we had announced recently, that asset also we would be adding more alloy steel focused long steel. The rail mill in Raigarh will be again another value-added offering to the market.

We continue to look at opportunities and add product lines which would be able to meet the demand of the market.

Sure. Now, while that is helpful, I understand these are all quite detailed downstream-oriented plans.

I was looking more at the headline steel production in terms of CR, HR. Those brackets, will that also undergo a change, or would you continue to broadly maintain the mix between rebars, HR, CR?

From flat steel point of view, I think our basic aim is to see that our value-added and special steel component percentage remains by and large as to what we are, and if not improve. That will be our focus.

Our flat steel component is higher, and will remain higher as we grow our capacity.

Got it. Sure, that is all.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. We continue to remain very confident about the outlook for the growth in India.

The demand continues to be very strong. The H2 looks very strong.

Our balance sheet has the strength and the profile today to be able to fast-track our capex in line with what we have guided for FY32. We have added capex according to that, and we will continue to focus on our raw material security as we build our volumes in terms of steelmaking.

Our value-added and special products we have already outlined. We are continuing to invest in those as well.

We remain very optimistic on the growth going forward for this decade in India. Thank you.

Thank you, everyone. Thanks for joining us, and have a good weekend.