Jindal Steel and Power Limited (JSPL) Q3 results: Posts net profit of Rs 2,432 crore, revenue increases 40 per cent

 25-Jan-2021

JSPL Q3 results: The consolidated revenue jumped by 40 per cent to Rs 10,534 crore compared to Rs 7,526 crore in Q3 FY20, driven by strong performance in Indian steel as well as power business.

Jindal Steel and Power Ltd (JSPL) in the last week reported a consolidated net profit after tax (PAT) at Rs 2,432 crore for the third quarter ended December 31, 2020, on the back of improvement in operating and financial leverage. The steel and energy company had posted net loss of Rs 257 crore in December quarter of 2019, JSPL said in a regulatory filing on Thursday.

The consolidated revenue jumped by 40 per cent to Rs 10,534 crore compared to Rs 7,526 crore in Q3 FY20, driven by strong performance in Indian steel as well as power business.

The company's earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) surged by 170 per cent to Rs 4,252 crore from Rs 1,574 crore in the year ago period. "All operational assets except Australia reported positive EBITDA in Q3 FY21," JSPL said.

"December quarter showed recovery signs for the entire steel industry in India with utilisation levels as well as domestic demand rising month on month. However, steel industry continues to struggle with raw material scarcity amplified by exponential rise in domestic and international iron ore prices," JSPL said in a filing to the BSE.

During October-December quarter, JSPL standalone reported highest-ever steel production volumes (including pig iron) at 1.93 million tonnes (up 20 per cent YoY) and sales of 1.87 million tonnes (up 12 per cent YoY).

As domestic demand continued to recover, JSPL raised its sales within India which was reflected in declining share of exports to 21 per cent versus 38 per cent in Q2 FY21, the company said.

During the quarter under review, pellet production increased 3 per cent YoY. External sales of pellets, however, reduced to 0.40 million tonnes (down 38 per cent YoY) on higher internal consumption as steel volumes continue to ramp up.

"Q3 FY21 also saw JSPL becoming India's first private company to get the "Regular Supplier" status from Indian Railways to supply 60kg 880 grade (90UTS) Rails," it said.

Jindal Steel and Power Limited (JSPL) today is one of India’s major steel producers with a significant presence in sectors like Mining, Power Generation and Infrastructure. With an annual turnover of over US $2.6 billion, JSPL is a part of the over US $ 15 billion diversified O. P. Jindal Group.

Indian Steelmakers urge PM Narendra Modi to ban iron ore export for six months

30-Dec-2020

Hot-rolled coil prices have increased by 46 percent to Rs 52,000 per tonne in November as compared to Rs 37,400 per tonne in July this year. Rebar TMT, which is used in the housing and construction sectors, had touched Rs 50,000 a tonne, industry sources said.

Indian steelmaker’s body, the Indian Steel Association (ISA) yesterday wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, explaining that the metal price hike was due to surging raw material costs, and also requested him to impose a temporary ban on iron ore export till the supply side stabilises for the key raw material.

Indian Steel Association currently represents almost all the major Public and Private Sector steel producers of India and intends to be focal point for steel industry related deliberations in the country and abroad.

The Indian Steel Association (ISA) approached Prime Minister’s Office after Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari wrote a letter to the prime minister on the impact of rising steel prices on infrastructure projects.

"We would like to highlight some of the very serious and compelling reasons which have left the steel industry with no recourse, but to raise prices of steel from time to time," the ISA said in its letter to the PMO.

Hot-rolled coil prices have increased by 46 percent to Rs 52,000 per tonne in November as compared to Rs 37,400 per tonne in July this year. Rebar TMT, which is used in the housing and construction sectors, had touched Rs 50,000 a tonne, industry sources said.

In their letter ISA mentioned about the issues related to iron ore, price rise of raw materials, shortage in global steel supply and lower capacity utilization because of lockdown due to COVID 19.

"Due to a temporary shortage of steel in the wake of the COVID-19 disruptions, the international prices surged to over USD 750 per tonne from the bottom of USD 397 per tonne witnessed this year. As India is an open economy, the steel prices in the country move up with the global prices," ISA secretary general Bhaskar Chatterjee said.

He also mentioned that iron ore price has increased more than double from Rs 1,960 to Rs 4,160 per tonne in the period of June-December 2020.

"With an increase of Rs 1,000 in iron ore prices, the minimum impact is Rs 2,000 per tonne in steelmaking," Chatterjee said.

Iron ore production in the April-October period of 2020 was at 92.08 million tonne, registering sharp degrowth of 30 percent over the same period last year.

On the other hand, iron ore exports had surged by 70.3 percent to 29.2 million tonne in the first half of the current fiscal.

Explaining why the metal price has been raised, the ISA said Indian crude steel production fell by 19 percent in the current financial year.

"Indian steel industry faced severe disruptions in production caused by the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic. Consequently, many steel companies in India with sub-optimal operating capacity showed substantial cash losses due to non- absorption of huge fixed costs for the quarter ended June 2020," it added.

(Source: Moneycontrol / PTI, edited)

Chinese steelmaker Jiangsu Shagang to invest $2.25 billion for modernising steel mills in Henan province | Steel Industry News

13-Dec-2020

Chinese biggest private sector steel producer, Jiangsu Shagang Group disclosed that it will invest 14.8 billion yuan ($2.25 billion) in buying and modernizing steel mills in China’s central Henan province in a project to create a high-end steel manufacturing facility.

Led by Anyang Yongxing Special Steel Co Ltd, a unit of Jiangsu Shagang based in Henan, the project aims iron making capacity at 4.94 MTPA (million tonnes per annum) and steel making capacity at 5.5 MTPA when complete confirmed by a local media report.

In its report Jiangsu Shagang Group neither disclosed any completion date for its project nor potential acquisition targets by name, but said private mills in the Anyang city area would be involved. Anyang Yongxing currently has iron and steel producing capacity around 1.85 MTPA and 2.22 MTPA, respectively. 

Beijing has been promoting consolidation in its more than one-billion-tonne steel sector in an effort to enhance major producers’ competitiveness and knock out outdated production capacity. China’s Baowu Steel Group has completed multiple acquisitions and takeovers across the country during 2019-20.

China’s Jiangsu Shagang Group founded in 1996, manufactures and sells various steel products wide heavy plates, hot rolled strip coils, high speed wire rods, ribbed steel bars, and other products. Jiangsu Shagang Group markets its products throughout the world.

(Source: Reuters)

Development of FINEX Process and Steel Plants with FINEX in Operation

In the present article we give a brief data about how the FINEX process evolved from COREX technology, FINEX plants were started and subsequent developments and changes brought in those FINEX plants with their effects besides, the steel plants with FINEX process in operation (existing & upcoming FINEX Plants). Also Read: 

FINEX® Process, smelting reduction technology of iron making - Features, Merits and Limitations     

Development of FINEX Process and FINEX Plants

The FINEX is the latest addition and an optimized fine-ore smelting reduction (SR) process of iron making developed by POSCO that can be considered as an offshoot of COREX technology. In December 1992, POSCO and Primetals Technologies signed a cooperation agreement for the joint development of the FINEX Process. The first FINEX plant with a pilot scale production was started on November 14th 1995. In 2002 POSCO converted one the existing COREX plant into FINEX F-0.6M demonstration plant with a nominal capacity of 0.6 MTPA hot metal production, which commenced operation in May 2003. In July 2014, POSCO stopped the operation of this plant and at present it is in the final stage of agreement with an Indian steel maker for its reinstallation in India (discussed  under Upcoming FINEX plant in India).

Having successful results and following optimization of equipment and process parameters, POSCO decided to install the industrial FINEX F-1.5M Plant (1.5 MTPA production capacity). The work was started to build the first commercial FINEX F-1.5M plant by POSCO in August 2004 which finally commenced operation in April 2007.

Based on the successful results of the F-1.5M FINEX Plant, POSCO and Primetals Technologies decided to further develop F-2.0M FINEX plant with an annual hot metal production capacity of 2 MTPA. The job was started by POSCO In 2011 to build the first FINEX F-2.0M and the plant has been successfully put into operation in January 2014 and according to POSCO, the F-2M FINEX plant produced 1.5 million tons of hot metal in the first 11 months.

Modifications made in the F-2M FINEX Plant with their achievements

The design of the third generation F-2M FINEX plant is characterized by a simplified plant concept resulting in decreased construction weights compared to the F-1.5M concept. Besides others, following major changes in its design are attributed to its achievement: 

• Pneumatic ore charging to the fluidized bed reactors including a 3-stage fluidized bed reactor system resulting in a decreased building height of more than 30%
• Simplified system configuration in the hot compacting system and implementation of dry de-dusting equipment
• Elimination of HCI bin and related top gas system in the melter gasifier tower
• Installation of a centre charging system for hot HCI and coal, allowing for homogeneous charging of feed materials to the melter gasifier. The distribution on the char bed surface is realized via a dynamic gimbal distributor.

These modifications helped in reducing overall construction weight of the FINEX F-2.0M plant by approx. 9% and required no larger space in the plant layout. After start-up in January 2014, operation optimization and facility stabilization, the productivity of the F-2.0M plant achieved its target value of 5760 t/d in April 2014. Since then operation targets are achieved and operational optimization is under progress to further optimize coal consumption.

Due to improvements in equipment and operational skills, a target availability of greater than 95% could be achieved in the first few months of operation.

Upcoming FINEX Plants in India

POSCO and USPL

In Aug’15 POSCO signed a memorandum with Uttam Steel and Power Limited (USPL) to set up 3 MTPA integrated steel plant in Maharashtra (India) at an envisaged investment of nearly ₹ 20,000 crore (Approximately 3.07 Billion USD). The proposed project at Satarda in Maharashtra’s Sindhudurg district in India is based on POSCO’s patented Finex process. For complete details please refer to our article POSCO signs MOU with Uttam Steel and Power Limited (USPL) to set up a 3 MTPA Integrated Steel Plant at Satarda, India

POSCO and MESCO 

Earlier in this year Mideast Integrated Steel Limited, the flagship company of Mesco Group, India signed a memorandum with South Korean steel maker POSCO to use FINEX technology at its Kalinganagar plant in Jajpur district of Odisha (India). The first FINEX plant of POSCO which they ceased operating since July 2014, is to be transferred to MESCO. This project is part of the USD 700 million first phase steel expansion project to take Mesco Steel's capacity to 2 million tonnes. Presently, Mesco Steel operates two blast furnaces in its plant at Kalinganagar. The company has its own iron ore mine in Roida Barbil region of Keonjhar District in Odisha and another iron ore mining lease at Malangtoli in Odisha. In this month both Posco and Mesco have agreed for next meeting in November this year to discuss the modalities for transfer of Finex technology. After that, the process of dismantling of Posco's Finex plant in Korea and its subsequent installation at Mesco premises would take off. The Finex plant during operation would need a running 100 Mw captive power plant (CPP) and an oxygen plant of 1,000 tonne per day (tpd) capacity. Finex process is expected to cut hot metal production cost for Mesco by Rs 2000-2500 per tonne.

Available FINEX Modules

Different sizes of FINEX modules and capacity made available by POSCO to meet specific requirements of the customers are:

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The largest Blast Furnace of India blown-in by SAIL at ISP, Burnpur

17-Dec-2014
The largest Blast Furnace in India was blown-in at Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL’s) IISCO Steel Plant (ISP) in presence of Sri C.S. Verma, Chairman SAIL, at Burnpur. Named 'Kalyani', the state-of-the-art blast furnace has a volume of 4160 cubic meters and has become the biggest operating blast furnace in India now. Prior to this, the largest Blast Furnace of the country was installed by SAIL (Steel Authority of India Limited) at Rourkela Steel Plant (RSP) in 2013 which has a useful volume of 4060 cubic meters.


The start-up of this furnace 'Kalyani' is  being considered as the culmination of a massive Modernization and Expansion work in IISCO Steel Plant (ISP) Burnpur for the installation of a state-of-the-art 2.5 MTPA steel plant.

Refer previous article SAIL Expedites Modernization and Expansion of ISP, Burnpur

Environmental Friendly Steel Production at Durgapur Steel Plant, a unit of SAIL

3-Dec-2014
Following the commencement of successful hot trial of second Convertor with Electrostatic-Precipitator (ESP) facility at BOF Shop by the SAIL (Steel Authority of India Limited) Chairman Mr. C S Verma on 20th Nov, the step produced from it was cast in Caster No 1 producing about 100 tons of billets from all 6 stands on 21st Nov. This is the first time that a Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) Unit is using Electrostatic-Precipitator (ESP) facility for an environment friendly steel production.

It won’t be irrelevant to mention here that Durgapur Steel Plant (DSP), a unit of India’s steel major Government enterprise SAIL (Steel Authority of India Limited), has been able to maintain a commendable performance ever since its inception in all important production parameters.