Indian steel companies expect strong demand

India's leading steelmakers Tata Steel, JSW Steel and Jindal Steel Power (JSPL) expect a year of strong domestic demand due to high government spending on public infrastructure, recovery in the construction sector and increase in consumption. Export markets could also be lucrative, given the high prices of alloys in key markets.

“The world market is going through a period of change due to the pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine conflict. This will have a profound impact on global supply chains and increase commodity prices. Tata Steel's Executive Director and Chief Financial Officer, Koushik Chatterjee, said: "The Indian economy is expected to be stable with very significant government spending on public infrastructure." said.

Chatterjee said steel supplies will be scarce globally as all Russian and Ukrainian supplies are lost from seaborne trade. He added that there could be significant supply disruptions globally, particularly in Europe.

Sharma said, “The domestic steel industry will perform very well in 2022-23. There will be a healthy demand and increase in exports. Profitability will be good. It will be decided whether the price can be kept at the current level, how the input costs will behave. But there may not be margin erosion in 2022-23.” said.

India's crude steel production increased from 104 MT in 2020-21 to 118 million tons (MT) in 2021-22. This is likely to increase to 130 MT in 2022-23. While domestic consumption is likely to increase by 7-8%, export volume will increase from 12% in FY22 to about 20% of production in FY23. In the April-February period, India exported about 13 mt of steel, while imports were 4.3 mt.

JSW Steel Commercial and Marketing Director Jayant Acharya said that steel demand will be good in 2022-23 both globally and in India. The overall economic activity and increase in steel consumption will be supported by efforts to focus on infrastructure building/reconstruction, manufacturing and energy self-sufficiency. “India will be a growth story not just for the current fiscal period, but for this decade as well, thanks to the government's breakthrough in building infrastructure and efforts to increase production and generate more power through renewable sources.” said.