JSW Steel Preparing To Restart Operations After Lockdown
Manufacturing at all of its locations have been either scaled down or suspended during the lockdown.
As the 21-day lockdown period is nearing an end, private steelmaker JSW Steel Ltd. has started preparations to scale up production.
While releasing the production figures for the financial year 2019-20 on Tuesday, JSW Steel announced "it is making all preparations to recommence operations at all locations on lifting of lockdown in the next few days."
The company, however, did not provide any further details.
On March 25, the Sajjan Jindal-led JSW Steel said the company has decided to scale down or suspend production during the lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The manufacturing operations in all of its locations have been either scaled down or suspended, it said adding that consequently, the capacity utilisation is expected to have gone down significantly during this lockdown period.
During the financial year ended March 31, the company's crude steel output stood at 16.06 million tonne, down 4 percent from 16.69 million tonne in 2018-19.
The production of flat rolled products fell 3 percent to 11.35 MT from 11.74 MT in the previous financial year, while the output of long rolled products reduced by 4 percent to 3.72 MT from 3.87 MT in the financial year 2018-19.
During the January-March 2020 period, the output was at 3.97 MT, down 5 percent as compared with 4.17 MT in the same period of the previous financial year.
The production of flat rolled products during the last quarter fell by 5 percent to 2.87 MT from 3.01 MT in year-ago-period, while the output of long rolled products reduced by 4 percent to 0.95 MT from 0.99 MT in the fourth quarter of the financial year 2018-19.
The company attributed the reductions in production levels to the slowdown in economic activity due to unanticipated breakout of the Covid-19 pandemic and consequent nationwide lockdown in the later part of March 2020 led to a sharp fall in production across the plant locations.
Part of the $14-billion JSW Group, JSW Steel has steel plants in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra with a total production capacity of 18 MT per annum.
Its manufacturing facility at Vijayanagar, Karnataka, is the largest single location steel-producing facility in India with a capacity of 12 MT per annum.