Impact Of Blast Furnace Maintenance Shutdowns Will Be Absent In Q2: JSW Steel | CNBC TV18

Yeah. So, the steel demand if you've seen in India in the last quarter grew by about 7.9%. It has been strong considering the fact that the quarter grew by 15%. So the base was seasonally higher, so 7.9% is good. The capex by the central government for April and May numbers are also positive. I think we are on track to achieve this 11.2 trillion of capex which was announced from the domestic side. So therefore we see stable economic growth, we see good steel demand in India. As far as the global challenges are concerned, I think we have seen quite a few in the last few months. The uncertainties have not fully settled down geopolitically as well as on the tariff side. So we see a still resilient economy in spite of all this, and World Bank has still maintained the growth at 2.9%, slightly lower than the last estimate but still at 2.9% which is reasonably good.

Yes. So just to go to the Chinese production side first. So China production for the first half of this year has moderated by about 3%. The domestic growth has also moderated by close to 6%. And their exports have been elevated, so went up by 17%. So that's the area of concern which we see. On the price side, I think China has improved over the last few weeks. We see that as a positive. The inventory in China's monitored areas or monitored markets are down by 4 million from 14 million to 10 million, which is again a positive. So given the fact that 30 million tons of production cuts are expected or let's say production moderation is expected this year, I think going into the second half of this year maybe we will see a better moderation on the export side as well. Coming to India, yes, I think the safeguard has been very timely and it has certainly been of great help to the Indian steel industry at large. As you know, the global challenges as I mentioned have been quite high. The tariff uncertainties have also caused trade flows to get diverted, and India is a high growth market and is open to barriers. So therefore this safeguard was very timely. We do expect that the government will be looking into the final safeguards which are due in the next few months and will take necessary steps to see that dumping of steel in India does not happen.

So on the coking coal side, last quarter as we had guided between $10 to $15, we have seen a drop of about $14 in line with our guidance. Going forward into quarter two, we expect a lower drop. As you said, the prices are stabilizing, so maybe between 0 to $5, say up to $5 is something which we see a moderation possible on coking coal side.