JSW Steel April Crude Steel Production Slips 1% Amid Vijayanagar Blast Furnace Shutdown

JSW Steel has reported a marginal decline in consolidated crude steel production for April 2026 as maintenance shutdown activities at its Vijayanagar facility in Karnataka impacted output during the month. The company produced 21.18 lakh tonnes of crude steel in April, down 1 percent from 21.40 lakh tonnes recorded during the same period last year.

Production from the company’s Indian operations stood at 20.40 lakh tonnes compared to 20.56 lakh tonnes in April 2025. Meanwhile, its US operations in Ohio reported a 7 percent decline in output at 0.78 lakh tonnes against 0.84 lakh tonnes a year earlier.

According to JSW Steel, Blast Furnace 3 at its Vijayanagar integrated steel plant is currently undergoing a planned shutdown for capacity enhancement works. The temporary shutdown affected overall production volumes during the month.

Despite the decline, the company stated that crude steel production growth excluding the impact of the blast furnace shutdown from last year’s base stood at around 10 percent. The growth was supported by the full ramp up of operations at JVML.

Capacity utilisation at Indian operations remained strong at around 94 percent excluding the impacted blast furnace. Including the shutdown unit, utilisation stood at 83 percent for the month.

JSW Steel also highlighted a key corporate development involving Bhushan Power and Steel Ltd. The steel business of BPSL was transferred to JSW-JFE Steel Ltd, a joint venture entity, on a slump sale basis during March 2026. As a result, production figures related to the transferred business have been excluded from the previous year’s comparison data.

The company currently operates a consolidated crude steel capacity of 35.7 million tonnes per annum, including 1.5 MTPA in the United States. Domestic capacity stands at 34.2 MTPA. JSW Steel is targeting a major expansion and plans to increase consolidated steelmaking capacity to 48.9 MTPA over the next four years.