JSW Steel more than triples quarterly profit; CEO expects coking coal to rise $25/t, Reuters reports

What happened

JSW Steel published its results for the second quarter of its 2026–27 financial year (July to September) on 23 October, together with an investor presentation filed with the Indian stock exchanges. Consolidated net profit was ₹5,359 crore, against ₹1,646 crore reported a year earlier. Revenue from operations rose to ₹54,486 crore from ₹45,152 crore. Reported EBITDA was ₹10,120 crore; on the company’s adjusted basis, which strips out currency effects on long-term loans, it was ₹9,941 crore. The company compares the quarter with a pro forma year-ago figure that leaves out Bhushan Power and Steel, which it moved into a joint venture with Japan’s JFE Steel in March.

Volumes drove the result. Consolidated crude steel output reached 7.27 Mt, up 5% on a year earlier and 10% on the June quarter, and sales reached 7.46 Mt, up 13%. Both are company records. Blast furnace 3 at Vijayanagar, rebuilt to 4.5 Mt a year and lit in June, was running at about 90% of capacity during the quarter, and the Indian plants as a whole ran at 88%. Exports made up 13% of sales from the Indian plants, against 11% a year earlier and in the June quarter.

Costs moved the other way. The company says costs at its Indian plants rose against the June quarter, mainly because coking coal and other inputs were dearer. Reuters reported that Acharya told analysts on the results call that coking coal prices should rise by about $25 a tonne in October–December, after a rise of about $10 in July–September, which was less than the company had expected. He also expects demand for steel in India to grow by 7–8% this financial year. We could not check these remarks against a transcript or a company document, so they rest on Reuters alone.

JSW kept its full-year guidance of 29.75 Mt of production and 28.6 Mt of sales. It also approved new projects: a second 5 Mt phase at its Utkal site in Odisha, a 1.8 Mt cold-rolling complex at Vasind, and spending to expand its coking coal mine in Mozambique to about 9 Mt. Its 50:50 joint venture with JFE will add 5 Mt at Sambalpur. CNBC-TV18 reports that the two partners will put in ₹3,750 crore of equity each and that work is planned to start in April 2027, subject to approvals. Net debt was 0.39 times equity and 1.28 times EBITDA. During the quarter Moody’s raised JSW to investment grade (Baa3).

In Europe, JSW owns the long-products mill at Piombino in Tuscany, which rolls rails, bars and wire rod. In the quarter it sold 65,387 tonnes of rolled products. Revenue was €91.06 million and operating EBITDA €6.98 million, which the company describes as stable. In July the Italian industry ministry (MIMIT) announced a programme agreement under which JSW will invest €148.2 million to modernise the rail mill and keep its current workforce. If Metinvest’s planned new steelworks at the site is not built by 2027, JSW must present a new industrial plan. MaremmaOggi, in a September report on the plan, adds that the upgrade is meant to let the mill roll 120-metre rails instead of 108-metre rails, with up to €32.96 million of public support. We have that detail from this one Italian report only.

Why it matters

Analysis The coking coal remark matters most for European buyers. Blast-furnace mills in Europe buy coking coal in the same seaborne market as JSW. If a large buyer expects about $25 a tonne more in the fourth quarter, mills’ costs for first-quarter 2027 contracts are likely to rise as well. Our raw materials primer explains how such costs pass through to coil prices. A rise in costs alone does not set prices in Europe, where demand is weak, but it makes mills less willing to cut prices.

Analysis India is a growing steel supplier. Its largest private producer is running at record volumes and sending a larger share abroad. Strong demand at home limits how much it needs to export, but the higher export share is worth watching while the EU applies its tighter import quotas (see our trade defence explainer) and CBAM charges on imports. The EU’s draft waste export list would also cut India off from EU steel scrap from 2027.

Analysis For buyers of Italian rails and long products, Piombino’s steady quarter and the July agreement point to continued supply from the site. The bigger change, the new rail mill, still has to be built. Until the upgrade is done, rail supply depends on the existing line.

Who is affected

• European flat-steel buyers: watch for higher raw material costs at EU blast-furnace mills in first-quarter 2027 offers.
• Rail and long-product buyers in Italy: Piombino keeps running. The modernisation agreed in July is the key project to follow.
• Importers of Indian coil: JSW’s export share is rising. Quota access and CBAM costs will shape how much reaches the EU.

What to watch

• Coking coal prices in October–December: whether the $25 rise the CEO expects shows up in seaborne prices and in European mills’ offers.
• Piombino: the start of work on the rail-mill upgrade, and whether Metinvest’s project there goes ahead by 2027, which decides whether JSW’s fall-back obligations apply.
• JSW’s next quarterly results: whether the export share keeps rising and whether the coal cost forecast holds.

Sources

Primary sources

• Q2 FY27 Results Presentation (filing to NSE and BSE) — JSW Steel, 23 October 2026
• Piombino: raggiunta al Mimit intesa con JSW per rilancio polo siderurgico — Ministero delle Imprese e del Made in Italy, 9 July 2026 (Italian)

Supporting sources

• India’s JSW Steel warns of coking coal price spike as profit more than triples — Reuters via MarketScreener, 23 October 2026
• JSW Steel Q2 Results: net profit jumps 3-fold on record steel sales, beats estimates — CNBC-TV18, 23 October 2026
• Acciaierie Piombino, nuovo piano JSW: 148 milioni e 659 posti — MaremmaOggi, 3 September 2026 (Italian)

Related on Loharo

• Iron ore, coking coal and scrap: how raw material costs feed through to finished steel prices
• Steel trade defence explained: safeguards, anti-dumping, tariff quotas and Section 232
• EU draft waste list would shut India, Pakistan and Egypt out of EU steel scrap from May 2027
• Metinvest says EU steel quotas unfairly hit Ukraine: carve-out demand meets a firm 50% over-quota duty

Last fact-check: 24 October 2026 (Europe/Amsterdam).