US Has Been A Difficult Market To Export Steel From India: Tata Steel | CNBC TV18

So Nigel, the larger point is yes, I think the US trade deal is positive for India, positive for the sentiments in India, and hence indirectly positive for Tata. But coming back to coking coal, most of the coking coal we buy is from Australia as you mentioned because we use what are called stamp charge batteries in our plants in India. For stamp charge batteries, the Australian coals and some of the Indonesian coals and some of the African coals are better; the US coals are not suited for stamp charge technology. We buy coals from North America for Europe, but for India it's going to be largely Australia and a little bit from Indonesia and Africa. So you don't see any big change in terms of your sourcing mix from the United States going by what we have on the table today. Would that be a fair estimate into India?

Not so much directly as indirectly. Because directly, the US market has always been a market which was difficult to enter because trade actions are very swift there. In the past, whenever we exported a certain volume, there's always some trade action, whether it's for tubes or wires or any of the other products that we've exported. So we are not really looking at the US as an export market directly for steel, but many of our customers like the auto component manufacturers etc. export to the US, and that's an opportunity for us. And for some downstream products, of course, the US will be a market.

Yeah, that's possible for this quarter.

Let's wait and see. Like you said, coking coal prices are a bit of a concern. So far, the market seems to be quite strong based on all these sentiments which have changed. We've had a good start to this calendar year, both for long products and flat products. Our product mix is improving because the facilities in Kalinganagar, particularly the cold rolling mill and galvanizing lines, are all ramping up. We have the Comi Mill and Jamshedpur which gives us high-end long products. So in many ways, not only is the volume growing but also the mix is getting better. So 1,500 is fair as of now, and let's wait and see what happens in March.

Yeah, I think what has happened in the last few months is that domestic prices, which were at a discount to import landed, have corrected rightly so and come to import landed and slightly higher. Normally, domestic prices used to be at a 2,000 to 3,000 rupee premium to import landed to factor the risk involved when you're importing, right? So I think we've corrected quite a bit and come closer to where we should be from that perspective. But I think what remains to be seen is the impact of coking coal prices because at $250 it's quite high. Coking coal has gone up by $50 in the last two months. So let's wait and see if it stays that way or if it goes up further, because then that will force steel producers to seek better prices from the market to cover these costs.