The Steel Company That’s Becoming a Battery Manufacturer

Steel, Pellets, Mining, Solar, Batteries. Pick a Industry, Any Industry.

Welcome to Godawari Power & Ispat. A decade ago, this was a straightforward mid-cap—captive iron ore mines feeding a steel plant. Margins were predictable. Growth was orderly. No one was losing sleep over balance sheets.

Today? The story has fractured into a thousand sparkling pieces. Mining capacity expanding from 3.05 MTPA to 6.7 MTPA. Pellet production jumping from 2.7 to 4.7 MTPA. Cold rolling mill (CRM) of 0.7 MTPA coming in March 2027. Solar capacity 3x’ing to 540 MW. And the kicker—a 20 GWh battery energy storage system (BESS) plant commissioned by Q4 FY27 with ₹1,025 crore capex. Across two fiscals, the company will burn ₹3,500 crore in capex. Revenue is expected to jump from ₹5,238 crore (TTM) to ₹12,000-15,000 crore by FY28. This is not a slow-motion expansion. This is a wartime capex cycle disguised as peacetime profit-taking.

Q3 FY26 had an accident at the pellet plant that knocked September volumes. But margins expanded YoY. The February 2026 concall revealed that management has already received Consent to Operate for Ari Dongri mines at 6 MTPA and environmental clearance for mining and beneficiation. This is a company running at full sprint even when its plants are catching fire. Literally.

They Mine It, Blend It, Melt It, Roll It, And Now They’ll Store It.

Godawari’s base model is textbook vertically integrated steel. Two captive iron ore mines (Ari Dongri, Boria Tibu) supply 85% of iron ore needs. This feeds into a pellet plant (currently 4.7 MTPA post-Dec ’25 commission), which in turn feeds a sponge iron facility (594,000 TPA), steel melting shop (525,000 TPA billets), rolling mills (MS rounds, HB wires), and a fabrication yard. Power is captive—98 MW thermal, 42 MW waste heat recovery, 20 MW biomass, 36 MW coal, plus 70 MW + 22 MW + 18.5 MW solar plants already operational and another 375 MW coming online.

The 2024-26 period flipped the script. Management realized that: (a) captive mining expansion hits a ceiling if you run single-line pellet plant, (b) the steel market is finicky but industrial lubricants are boring, so batteries must be sexy, and (c) one plant makes you dependent on realisations—multiple products, multiple geographies, multiple margin profiles = safety. Enter the CRM (cold rolled mill) for galvanized/tinplate plays, and the BESS plant for stationary energy storage (a ₹12 trillion+ market opportunity by 2030 in India).

Backward integration now means mining isn’t just feeding your plant—it’s feeding your expanding capacity matrix. The Ari Dongri expansion (2.35 → 6 MTPA) provides the raw material. The beneficiation plant (5.4 MTPA) upgrades concentrate quality. The pellet expansion channels it upmarket. The CRM creates finished goods. Solar powers it all at ₹3/unit vs grid ₹7-11/unit. And the BESS plant is the wildcard—a ₹1,025 crore bet that 20 GWh of capacity (with 7% EBITDA margins) will become relevant as India scales renewable energy storage.

Q3 FY26: The Pellet Plant Accident & Margin Recovery

Result type: Quarterly Results  |  Q3 FY26 EPS: ₹2.14  |  Annualised EPS (Q3×4): ₹8.56  |  9M FY26 Revenue: ₹3,770 Cr

The nuance: Revenue fell 12.2% YoY due to softer realizations across pellets, DRI, and finished products—a sector-wide pressure. But OPM expanded 200 basis points YoY (17% to 19%), aided by lower fuel costs, less pellet production burn, and operational efficiency gains. The accident in late September impacted Q3 pellet sales volume; the company explicitly states inventory was cleared in Q4. This is a transitory dent, not structural.

What’s This Company Worth When It’s Doubling Revenue?