Lockdown effect: Tata Steel’s domestic Sales volume drops 15% in Q4

Bhubaneswar: Indian steel giant Tata Steel on Wednesday said that weak consumer demand due to the nationwide lockdown has affected its sales volume in the fourth quarter. However, it has managed to maintain its production growth during the quarter.

The company’s India sales volume during the fourth quarter has dropped by 14.61%   to 4.03 million tonnes (MT) as compared to 4.72 MT in the fourth quarter of FY19. The sales volume has dropped by 17% sequentially from 4.85 MT in the 3rd quarter of FY20. Tata Steel Europe’s sales volume has also dropped by 7.7% to 2.37 MT. However, sales volume at the company’s south-East Asia operations has remained flat during the quarter.

Tata Steel India has posted production growth of 5% at 4.74 MT in the fourth quarter as compared to 4.44 MT in the corresponding quarter of FY19.

“…Steel and Mining, being essential services and continuous process industries, are exempt from the lockdown measures subject to certain guidelines. The lockdown has led to logistic issues and lower demand driven by the shutdown of customer operations in automotive, construction and other segments since last few days of March 2020” said the company.

“Based on the specific guidelines from the Central and State Governments, the company have been able to operate its mining operations normally. In the view of these conditions including practical constraints in continuing operations, the company is operating integrated steelmaking facilities at lower utilization levels; operations at the downstream facilities have been suspended and put on care and maintenance mode” it said.