Jindal Steel's stated second-half selling pace lands below its sales guidance

Jindal Steel's revenue rose 42.7% from a year earlier in the September 2026 quarter, while operating profit rose 23.5%. The company is selling much more steel from the capacity it has added, and getting better prices for it, but its profit per tonne has slipped back to last year's average after a strong previous quarter. That puts the weight of the rest of the year on volume, and the monthly selling pace the chief financial officer described on the results call does not reach the low end of the sales range the company set in May.

Tonnes sold rose about 27%, calculated by dividing the company's adjusted EBITDA, its earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation, by its adjusted EBITDA per tonne. The company said higher selling prices and a larger share of flat steel, with less reinforcing bar, made up the rest of the revenue gain. Operating margin, operating profit before depreciation and interest as a share of revenue, fell to 15.4% from 17.8% a year earlier and was also lower than the quarter before. Below that line, interest and depreciation both grew faster than operating profit.

Per tonne, the company is back where it was last year. Adjusted EBITDA per tonne gave up most of the previous quarter's rise and ended close to the average for the year to March 2026. The company put the fall from the previous quarter mainly down to higher raw-material and operating costs. With margins per tonne roughly flat, growth this year depends on how many tonnes the plants make and sell.

In May the company guided sales of 10.5 to 11 million tonnes for this financial year, and the range still stood after its July call. By the same calculation as above, the first half sold about 4.61 million tonnes. Reaching the low end needs about 0.98 million tonnes a month for the rest of the year, calculated from those figures. The best of the last eight quarters averaged 0.87 million a month. The chief financial officer put saleable output at 0.90 to 0.95 million tonnes a month, said that should meet the guidance, and later said it could place the company in the middle of the range. Run for six months, that pace leaves the year short of the low end.

There are reasons the gap could close. Heavy rain flooded the Odisha iron-ore mines of OMC, one of its main suppliers, during the quarter, the managing director said, and the finance chief said every plant is now fully ramped up and ran close to designed capacity the day before the call. His monthly figure may describe the current run rate rather than an average for the half. The first-half tonnage is a calculation from two reported figures, not a filed number.

The dates the second half leans on have also moved. In July management said the iron-ore slurry pipeline from Barbil to Angul might be commissioned in the first half of August, with a freight saving of ₹700 a tonne showing in the quarter just reported. On the results call the managing director said commercial supply would begin the next day, so the saving starts only now. The new Angul blast furnace was to reach 12,000 tonnes a day after the monsoon, on July's plan; it runs at about 10,000 now and is aimed at that level in December. The second direct-reduced iron plant, which the company said in May was due towards the end of this financial year along with a second pellet plant, is now expected in June 2027, and the managing director cited imported equipment delayed by shipping; he said the pellet plant should also be fully commissioned by that month.

One target landed almost on the line. In July the finance chief said net debt would fall below 1.5x EBITDA during the quarter; it came in at 1.51x, and dividing reported net debt by Inve's operating profit for the last four quarters gives the same ratio. Gross borrowings barely changed from March, so the improvement came from cash and rising profit rather than repaying debt.