India’s steel safeguard duty should be raised, extended: JSW Steel CEO

The Indian safeguard duty on steel imports should be higher than 12% and imposed for a longer period of time to contain imports, JSW Steel CEO Jayant Acharya said on the sidelines of India Steel 2025 conference in Mumbai.

India imposed a provisional 12% safeguard duty on alloy and non-alloy steel flat products for 200 days earlier this week, in an effort to curb cheaper imports.

"The US has been having duties on India for the last 20 years, Europe has been for six years, so we need to look at what is good for India," Acharya told Platts, part of S&P Global Commodity Insights, on April 24.

Acharya said India's relative disadvantage is "very clear" with steel tariffs from most of the world at 25% while India is at half of that.

He said that imports could also be further restricted by extending the Indian government's mandate to use steel melted and poured in India in all public sector, state, and central government projects.

On the raw materials subject, Acharya said that while coking coal prices have fallen, if prices move above $190/mt FOB Australia levels, it will again start hurting the steel industry as international steel prices have not moved up.

In 2024, JSW Steel acquired an indirect economic interest in an Australia-based M Res NSW, which owns 30% interest in Golden M, in a deal that gave JSW exposure to South32's Illawarra met coal business in Australia.

Operations at Australia's GM3 Appin coking coal mine in New South Wales were suspended April 6 after an incident that resulted in injuries to four workers.

Acharya said they were not affected by the recent Appin mine incident and their Illawarra supplies will start to come from April-May.

He further said that iron ore prices have the scope to moderate as those prices did not fall to the extent of other raw materials, especially in India.

While the steelmaker currently has around 40% captive sourcing of iron ore, increasing capacities lowers those proportions.

JSW Steel has also been affected by a quantitative restriction on imports of low ash metallurgical coke from Jan. 1 to June 30, 2025.

Acharya said the government might work with a combination of import quotas and tariffs for met coke to help the merchant coke industry survive, although in the long run merchant cokeries will have to upgrade to new technologies to become more efficient.

He added that some steel mills without coke ovens will find it challenging but if the quotas are adequately given, mills will be able to balance it.