Speaking during the second session of the SteelOrbis Spring 2024 Conference & 90th IREPAS Meeting held in Berlin on April 28-30, Somanath Tripathy, former executive director at the Rourkela steel plant of Indian state-run steelmaker Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL), shared data about the current situation in the Indian steel industry and his expectations.
Looking at the situation in the country’s steel industry, Mr. Tripathy stated that India’s crude steel capacity totaled 167.9 million mt in 2023, while its crude steel production was recorded at 139.44 million. Both capacity and production increased year on year compared to 167.2 million mt and 124.57 million mt in 2022, respectively. This year, the country has produced 37.57 million mt of crude steel so far. Recalling that India aims to reach 300 million mt of steel capacity by 2030 to meet steel demand, which is anticipated to increase to 190 million mt by 2030 amid infrastructure, construction, and housing projects, Mr. Tripathy pointed out that 17 million mt of crude steel capacity, including three million mt at NMDC, five million mt at JSW’s Vijayanagar plant, five million mt and one million mt at Tata Steel’s Kalinganagar and Bhushan plants, respectively, and the remaining three million mt from electrical arc furnace-induction furnace based mills, will commence production in 2024, increasing the country’s total capacity to 184 million mt. The majority of the upcoming capacities, which will mainly use blast furnace-basic oxygen furnace technologies despite their high carbon footprint, were planned long before the decarbonization drive worldwide and in India got underway, Tripathy said. However, he noted that market participants think that it will not be plausible to continue with the planned blast furnace projects for India’s exports given the impending carbon duties.
Aside from the blast furnace-based steel production capacities, Tripathy said that EAF-based production within the scope of India’s decarbonization plans is likely to increase India’s scrap consumption and hence its scrap imports. He added that in 2024 India’s total scrap consumption is expected to increase by 14 percent to 35.6 million mt, while last year India imported 11.05 million mt and has so far imported 2.29 million mt of scrap this year.