Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to Jindal Stainless Q2FY26 Earnings Conference Call, hosted by ICICI Securities. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touch-tone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Vikas Singh from ICICI Securities. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you so much. Good afternoon, everyone. First of all, on behalf of ICICI Securities, I would like to thank the management for giving us the opportunity to host them. From the management side, we have with us Mr. Abhyuday Jindal, Managing Director; Mr. Tarun Kumar Kulbe, CEO, CFO, and Wholetime Director; and Ms. Shreya Sharma, Head Investor Relations. Without taking any more time, I'll hand it over to the management for their opening remarks. Over to you, sir.
Yeah, thank you, Vikas. Good day, everyone, and thank you for joining us for the company's Q2FY26 earnings call. I hope you have all had a chance to review the results and the company's earnings presentation uploaded on the exchanges and on our website earlier. Our discussion on this call will follow that presentation. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that some of the statements made today may be forward-looking in nature and are covered by the disclaimer on slide two of the earnings presentation. Joining me on the call today is our senior leadership team, who will take you through the key business developments and the performance for the quarter. After their remarks, we will open the floor for the questions. With that, let me hand it over to our Managing Director, Mr. Abhyuday Jindal, to take you through the highlights. Over to you, sir.
Thank you, Shreya, and good evening to everyone. I would like to welcome you all to the Q2 FY2026 earnings call. I will begin by outlining the key business highlights for the quarter ended September 2025 and the progress we continue to make across our priority sectors. Following that, Mr. Kulbe will take you through our operational and financial performance. Backed by the continued improvement in domestic demand across sectors, we sustained strong growth in our deliveries, increasing by around 15% year-on-year and 3% sequentially. Our strategic focus on expanding our presence across diverse sectors, along with healthy growth opportunities in the market, supported this momentum. As we continue to focus on increasing the share of our value-added products, the special product division delivered further growth during the quarter.
Strong demand from sectors such as pipe and tubes, lift and elevator, along with improved traction in passenger coach driven by rollout of Vande Bharat sleeper class orders, contributed meaningfully to this performance. Higher activity in metro projects across the country also supported the strong delivery momentum. This segment is expected to remain a significant contributor, with the national metro network targeting an expansion of nearly 1,000 km, positioning India to become the second-largest metro network globally. Driven by festive demand and our continued efforts to onboard new customers, the wide goods segment delivered strong growth during the quarter. Sequentially, the auto segment also maintained its volume growth, supported by an increase in demand for special products. With the recent GST cuts, this segment is expected to remain strong in Q3 as well.
Additionally, stainless steel adoption in the infra segment continues to rise, supported by the shift towards longer-lasting and corrosion-resistant materials in public projects. This trend is widening the demand base and creating meaningful opportunities for our growth. We are well-positioned to benefit from this trend. I'm pleased to share that we have opened our first stainless steel fabrication unit under our subsidiary, Jindal Stainless Steelway Limited, in Patalganga, Mumbai in Maharashtra. The facility sets a new benchmark in integrated infrastructure excellence and is designed to meet the growing demand for sustainable, high-quality bridge infrastructure, offering end-to-end fabrication solutions for India's expanding infra sector. On the exports front, the global environment continued to remain dynamic, with ongoing trade disruptions continuing to impact overall trade flows.
Coupled with soft demand in the U.S. and EU, the transition phase of CBAM implementation buying activity has slowed for both domestic and imported materials as buyers keep inventory lean. Despite these challenges, we were able to maintain our volume base through a sustained focus on expanding our customer portfolio and entering new geographies. On the import front, subsidized and substandard material continue to flow into India. The temporary suspension of QCO is both concerning and discouraging for the entire domestic industry. Given the prevailing geopolitical complexities, we anticipate a further rise in low-quality, cheap imports entering the country. We remain hopeful that the government will strengthen and enforce frameworks that uphold quality standards and ensure a level playing field for the industry. In this environment, our commitment to delivering high-quality products without any compromise on standards remains unwavering and continues to be a key differentiator for us.
We are also actively promoting our co-branding scheme, which is gaining a positive response in the utensils and kitchen segments alongside the P&T sector. On the sustainability front, we continue to make strong progress towards decarbonization. We have partnered with GreenZoo Energy India Limited to commission a green hydrogen plant at our Jodhpur facility, with a planned capacity of 600 Nm^3 per hour, targeted for completion by the middle of next year. In parallel, our renewable power utilization at Jodhpur and SAR facilities has increased to 42% till Q2 FY2026, up from 26% in FY2025, marking a significant step towards cleaner and more sustainable operations. With this, I would like to hand over to Mr. Kulbe to discuss our operational and financial performance. Thank you.
Thank you, Abhyuday. Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the call. I would like to begin by providing a detailed overview of our operational and financial performance. Our Q2 deliveries are at 648,050 metric tons, with an increase of around 15% year-on-year and around 3% quarter-on-quarter. Our Q2 consolidated EBITDA increased by around 17% year-on-year and around 6% quarter-on-quarter to INR 1,388 crore, while our consolidated PAT stood at INR 808 crore, an increase of around 33% year-on-year and around 13% quarter-on-quarter. For H1 2026, our deliveries stood at 1,274,302 metric tons, with an increase of around 12% year-on-year. Consolidated EBITDA increased by around 12% year-on-year to INR 2,698 crore, and consolidated PAT stood at INR 1,523 crore, with an increase of around 21% year-on-year. We are pleased to report continued improvement in our balance sheet.
As of November 30, 2025, our consolidated net debt has further reduced to INR 3,646 crore, with a net-to-EBITDA ratio at 0.73, comfortably below 1, and net debt-to-equity ratio of 0.2x, reflecting our disciplined approach to financial management. This robust financial management continued to place us in the better position to navigate ongoing macroeconomic challenges. Turning to subsidiaries front, all subsidiaries have shown improvement and contributed positively to the group's overall EBITDA. Operationally, we are encouraged by our REMPA, PAT, Chromeni, and NPI, with Chromeni achieving peak utilization around 70% and NPI operating around 90% during the quarter. Our SMS project in Indonesia and aligned downstream capacity expansions in India are progressing well and remain on track as per the timelines. As highlighted by Mr.
Jindal, we are unlocking new growth avenues in the infrastructure sector with the launch of a cutting-edge fabrication facility at Jindal Stainless Steelway Limited. With this unit, we aim to bridge the gap by bringing together material excellence, skilled fabrication, and streamlined processes to deliver timely and superior infrastructure solutions. To strengthen the stainless steel ecosystem and capabilities, we have launched a series of specialized programs, including fabricator training, qualification training, and sector-specific modules. These initiatives led to the training of 6,700 fabricators in Q2, bringing the cumulative total to 60,400 to date. These efforts aim to promote awareness and practical applications of stainless steel while reinforcing workforce competency across the value chain. Stainless steel demand in India is rising, driven by economic growth and infrastructure expansion. We are proud to support this shift towards sustainable materials.
With that, I conclude my remarks and invite the moderator to begin the Q&A session. Thank you.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on the touch-tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Amit Dixit from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Good afternoon, everyone, and thanks for the opportunity. A couple of questions from my side. The first one is essentially on a recently announced PLI scheme by the government, and in which the stainless steel, both flats and longs, have been brought in the ambit. I just wanted to understand what kind of benefit it will have for us and whether we have done some kind of analysis on this, on what products it would be applicable and how much we can quantify.
Yeah, so this PLI scheme just which has come out, and we are also studying it. Definitely, we see the possibilities because the certain of the provisions which are given there, we as a company will also be benefited, and I'm sure for the industry also benefit it could be there the way the scheme has been designed. To get you more specific on that, to be honest, we are also because it has just come, and we are also now working on it and evaluating it and then making.
We're trying to evaluate how much we can actually extract or benefit.
Amit, a couple of weeks, if you can check back with us, we'll have ready. There is positivity because these products have been included in this PLI.
Got it. The second question I have is again on exports. While I understand that there is a lot of, due to the very subdued external operating environment, exports have not picked up. Given the fact that in Europe, in particular, they are talking about a lot of infrastructure development pursuant to the ReArm Europe plan and all, do you see some feelers from there that the exports can pick up to Europe? Our quality of product can be absorbed over there. Is there something that you are seeing happening which will push exports, or do you expect that exports would remain in the same trajectory?
No, I think currently short-term export would remain in the same trajectory because I think everybody in terms of customers, also producers, everyone is looking what will be the impact of CBAM. Every time EU, as we are all tracking, they're always delaying it and not coming up with some clarity. I believe now in December, sometimes some further clarification should come. We still feel some pressure in the short term, but as per our quality and as per our approvals, we are able to supply and sell to any industry globally. We are ready with that. It's just that CBAM clarity is required. As we have announced, every time we're increasing our renewable exposure in terms of renewable energy exposure, we're increasing green hydrogen, we're picking up with anyway a scrap-based player.
We're keeping ourselves ready with any kind of CBAM duty that comes. But to really see that pushing exports again, some CBAM clarity first would be required before anyone can claim. Even European players themselves are having a tough time within Europe at the moment.
Okay. Got it. Got it. Thanks. That's it from my side. Thank you and all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Satyadeep Jain from Ambit Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi, thank you. Just wanted to check on the QCO order first and then on the capacity expansion. On the QCO order, that would be a near-term headwind. A, just clarity on what exactly is the timeline. Initial notification seemed to suggest any goods exported till October 10, October 30, would be exempted, which will give some lag time on arrival. What is the current situation? Is this going to end near term, or is there a possibility this could be extended beyond the next few months? What is the impact in the near term that you are seeing in the last few days of this? We have already had three, four weeks of this quarter. What kind of impact on volumes and imports have you seen so far this quarter?
If I can answer, this has been suspended till December. The QCO order has been suspended till December, and we are working with the government to ensure that the suspension removes and QCO comes back. QCO as a concept is very important for the country. It is not only for the steel industry or stainless steel, but it covers a wide range of industries and is protecting our citizens from substandard products. As a concept, we are totally pro-QCO. It is, as of now, suspended till December. Whenever there is certain uncertainty whether it will stay or not stay, there are certain downward pressures. As a company, in terms of our volumes, we have met our targets in October, and we will meet our targets in Q3 and H2.
There could be a little downward pressure on prices, but we are still sticking to our guidance that we have given at the beginning of the year.
Okay. Next, on the capacities that you have lined up in FY2027 and also the promoter BS, maybe could you provide some update where things stand as it pertains to the SMS, NPI, the HRAP, and that promoter last one is?
All our expansion projects are on track. Our NPI operations have been started at the beginning of the year already, and our melt shop in Indonesia should start early next year. Apart from that, like we announced earlier, we're increasing our cold rolling capacities. That is also on track to be starting end of FY 2027.
The HRAP would also be later half of FY2027?
Yes, absolutely.
Okay. Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you. A reminder to all participants, if you wish to ask a question, you may press star and one on your touch-tone telephone. The next question is from the line of Tushar Choudhury from Prabhudas Lilladher Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks, Lord. Congratulations on the good set of numbers, at least on volume front. Sir, any issues that Chromeni are we facing? Our Q1 utilization was 65%, but we were targeting around 80%-85% by first half, and now you are saying it is at around 70-odd %. Would like to know approximate EBITDA contribution from Chromeni if it is possible.
Yeah, so what we have stated, this is true that we have hit the numbers of 70% capacity utilization. In the second half, we believe that we'll be hitting that 80% what we have told you before of capacity utilization. It is on track.
EBITDA? It is already in EBITDA positive, right?
Yeah, EBITDA is all included. We gave a consolidated number.
The numbers is the guidance. Yeah, stays the same.
In terms of CapEx, we have given INR 2,700 crore of CapEx for full year. How much we did in Q2? Basically, first half, INR 665 crore was.
In the H1, we have already done around INR 1,261 crore as CapEx. Again, whatever INR 2,700 crore guidance we have provided, we are on course to that.
We can easily touch 2.65 million ton. Are we increasing volume guidance to, let's say, 12%?
No, volume guidance, we had given 9-10% for this year, and that we are maintaining.
Yeah, we will ensure that.
That means second half, we will be a little bit lower than 9-odd % because first half, already we have done 11-odd % growth on volumes.
It is only because of a lot of, like we mentioned earlier, uncertainty with CBAM coming in and this QCO. We will definitely try to achieve higher numbers than we can. What we have committed, that much we will definitely achieve. We always, as a company, will try to achieve even higher numbers.
Okay. Okay, sir. Thanks. Thanks, Mr. Flexer.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Ritesh from Investec. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi, sir. Thanks for the opportunity, sir. A couple of questions. First is, anything incremental on structure simplification? We have Chromeni, we have RBPL, we have RT. I presume there will be accumulated losses over there. Then why is it that we are not merging it, also making good of the losses?
Ritesh, all the in terms of consolidation is in the pipeline, and it is in our plans. It is just for certain factors why we are not taking that step right now. Next couple of years, you'll see most of the assets being consolidated.
Sir, any timelines to that? Say a year or two.
Different, different timelines for different organizations. If you would like some clarity, then I'll ask Shreya to share more details with you on that. Most of our assets are going to be consolidated.
Sure, sir. Sir, second question on Maharashtra expansion. We have indicated four phases of a million ton each looking to procure land. Just trying to get some clarity on this variable and how should we look at FY 2028 CapEx?
Maharashtra, I mean, the land part is going on. Like in India, the land always takes time when you work on it. For our kind of plant and our kind of scale, what we are talking about, the requirement is also quite fairly large. We are working on it, and it is progressing. This is what I can say. Very soon, we will come out with our plans on Maharashtra. For everybody for Maharashtra, we do plan to have a full-day kind of session on it to take our investors through what our plans are, what are the metrics, the numbers. Absolutely, we will come out with that.
Sure. Sir, I think in the initial remarks, you indicated NPI at 90% utilization. Is it possible to highlight the underlying economics and the contribution over here and how it's helping the business?
NPI, Ritesh, earlier also, we had indicated that at EBITDA level, $500-$1,500 range is what we had indicated. It is because in NPI, we all know volatility is there. With the utilization, what Mr. Jindal has informed, with that, the EBITDA is coming into that range, and we are EBITDA positive on that.
Sir, it's a very wide range. If you could highlight some numbers on EBITDA contribution or per ton and how it's helping the business from an operational standpoint, that would be great, sir.
It is in between only, Ritesh. I mean, this number, then we will ask Shreya to then share with you, I mean, discuss with you separately.
Sure. Sir, lastly, how should we look at a ramp-up of RT and RBPL, both from product mix as well as from a utilization level standpoint?
RBPL, we are almost running at 70.
RT .
RT, I'm saying. Yeah, RT. Almost 70-75%. Again, in that, the good thing is that this stainless rebar is gradually picking up. On average, now I can say in the range of 2,000-2,500, those kind of numbers started picking up.
Even from the private sector, we're getting stainless steel rebar orders. Like Mr. Kulbe is saying, now every month we see rebar sales picking up and wire rod sales moderating, which is a good sign. That is the main reason why we entered RT steel.
Sure. And RBPL, sir?
RBPL, so far, whatever we had indicated before, that the polishing lines and all that business is going on. We are working on a plan now, seriously, which we will come back very quickly on the RBPL, the cold rolling facilities and all that. We are working on it.
Sir, is it contributing positively to EBITDA, or is it a negative contribution right now?
It is contributing positive.
Sure. Thank you so much for the answer. I'll join back with you. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. A reminder to all participants to ask a question. You may press star and one on your touch-tone telephone. The next question is from the line of Parthiv Jonsa from Anand Rathi. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you for the opportunity. I have a couple of questions. Just to start off with, can you just give me the breakup of 200, 300, and 400 series for the quarter?
Yeah, sure, Parthiv. I read it in a flow of 200, 300, and 400 series. For this quarter, it was 34%, 49%, and 17%.
All right. Thanks, Shreya. My second question is pertaining to your EBITDA, where you have answered somewhere in the comments. I just wanted to get a better clarity on it. Now, this particular quarter, we did reasonably a good number. Though you have kept your volume guidance intact, would you like to rework or go back to the drawing board and say that, "Okay, whatever original guidance of EBITDA per ton you have done, considering nickel being relatively stable, we'll revisit and do better for the year," and considering your downstream also picking up? Would you like to revisit that number of an EBITDA per ton for FY2026 and FY2027?
Not at this moment because, like we've been saying, that with certain challenges that are coming globally and domestically, we don't want to change the guidance until we see better clarity from the market side. We are not changing anything. We are sticking to our numbers of what we committed at the beginning of the year, and we will achieve that. At this point, we don't want to revise anything because, like I said, CBAM is going to come up anytime this whole QCO thing is going on domestically. A little more clarity would be required. I'm sure in the next couple of months, that should come.
Sure. Appreciate that, sir. My next question is pertaining that now when you're moving from, say, wire rod to, say, rebar, right, what are the ideal spreads one should consider in the model? What can be, let's say, best case and the worst case scenario? The spread between a wire rod and a rebar.
If you ask me that what as a company, we would like to be targeting, I mean, we would like to go even up to maximum on the rebar side as well. Okay, as an ideal case, because now since we are catering both the market, maybe 6,000-7,000 tons of rebar and 3,000-4,000 tons of wire rod, maybe that kind of balancing might be more practical. If the opportunity comes and if we see the positivity and all, given the possibility, we believe that we would like to increase rebar to the maximum in future.
Sure. Sure. If I may just squeeze in a quick one, just wanted to get some better clarity on your backward integration, particularly for the ferrochrome. Just wanted to get what is your own mine, what quality of ore we have, or do we procure from a merchant as well, the ore as well as the ferro?
For chrome, if you are saying our main source is OMC, which is Odisha Mining Corporation. We have a long-term linkage with them. Apart from that, our own mine operation should start sometime next year, actually.
What % are you targeting from your own mine?
I think we're still working on it, but a substantial quantity should come from our own mines.
Okay. I believe this is at Sukinda mine, right? It's at Sukinda.
Absolutely. Sukinda, just 20-30 km from our plant.
Perfect. Perfect. Sounds great, sir. Thank you so much, sir.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Mehul Panjwani from 40 Cents. Please go ahead.
Hello, sir. Thank you so much for the opportunity. Sir, in an earlier question, one of the participants mentioned about RT acquisition. Can you please elaborate? I'm not aware about as I'm tracking this company recently.
Mehul, for that, I would request you to connect with our team because this we did almost two years. Just quickly, this was our acquisition to enter into stainless steel long products, catering to two sectors, wire rod and stainless steel rebar. With the big push coming in infrastructure where corrosion is a big problem, bridges collapse, and other infrastructure collapse, stainless steel rebar demand is something that we saw picking up. There was a lot of requirement coming from public procurement side, private procurement side, which was the reason why we entered and acquired this asset, which was almost two years back. For further details on this, specifically, you can contact our IR team, and we'll give you complete information.
Thank you, sir. Just one clarification. This was a private company, right?
This was a private company. It was closed. Operations were closed, and we acquired it in MTLT.
Okay. Thank you so much. That is very helpful.
Thank you, Mehul.
Thank you. A reminder to all participants to ask a question. You may press star and one on your touch-tone telephone. The next question is from the line of Vikas Singh from ICICI Securities. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Thank you for taking my question. Sir, though it is still early, but I just wanted to understand, had we got any understanding regarding CBAM, since we are using some portion of the renewable energy, would we get a weighted average of plant-wise energy calculation or renewable energy using in one heat would make it as a green stainless steel? Any understanding of color on that?
Vikas, I think this is the most confusing topic there is in the world of trade this time because I was in Europe last week, and the main reason was to, again, identify and discover what is happening with CBAM. I met European manufacturers also to further discuss what are their plans and what are they doing. What they have said is that they're expecting by middle December, before Europe goes on some kind of holiday, some more clarification should come. Until then, even they are absolutely unaware, and so are we. We are in touch with all the highest authorities that are there, but still no clarity is coming on CBAM. What we know is that they will start with default scores, and then it will go company or individual factory-wise.
Still, timelines, further clarification is still what we're all awaiting, which is why I've been saying that we're not committed to any kind of numbers change until that clarity comes.
Very well noted, sir. Second question, in terms of 200, 300, and 400 series, if you could give us the idea of the current profitability level of these series and any potential to tweak this.
We do not comment on individual series because it becomes proprietary information. As always, we give a consolidated figure for EBITDA per ton, and we would like to stick to that.
Noted, sir. Sir, lastly, given our major CapEx for Maharashtra probably would start at FY 2028 onwards, how should we look at our debt from here onwards?
See, I mean, definitely, in terms of if you know and you're tracking the company, we already have one of the lowest debt profiles, our debt to EBITDA, debt to equity is one of the lowest globally in the metal sector. Whatever expansion we do, we are quite well placed in terms of keeping our ratios intact. We have committed we will not let our ratios go further higher of a certain number, and we're going to stick to that. We don't see any kind of challenge with our Maharashtra expansion from a balance sheet perspective.
Noted, sir. That's all from my side.
Thank you.
Thank you. As there are no further questions, I would now like to hand the conference over to management for closing comment. Over to you, sir.
Thank you, everybody. I would like to conclude by saying we delivered a steady and resilient performance despite the dynamic external environment, strong demand across key sectors, rising traction in our value-added portfolio, and our continued customer focus along with diverse sector presence supported our growth during the quarter. Our unwavering commitment to quality and operational discipline continues to set us apart, even as global markets remain soft and import pressure persists. I hope that we've been able to answer all your questions. Should you need any further clarification or would like to know more about the company, please feel free to contact our investor relations team. Thank you once again, and hope to see you all soon next time.
On behalf of ICICI Securities, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.