The Steel Route–Resource Recalculation

India's draft National Steel Policy 2047 specified a production ambition and an indicative resource table. It also envisaged technological changes over the intervening decades, including scrap use, hydrogen-based direct reduced iron (DRI) and carbon capture. A credible resource plan carries its assumptions forward as technology routes, feedstock requirements and production shares are revised.

The method measures the resource consequences of a changed production route and identifies the coefficients needed to calculate them. It is not a forecast of India's 2047 route mix.

1. Fix the accounting boundary

Record the steel output being modelled, its reference year, material units and the separation between crude-steel routes and ironmaking inputs. Blast furnace/basic oxygen furnace (BF–BOF), electric arc furnace (EAF) and induction furnace (IF) are steelmaking categories. Coal-based DRI and hydrogen-based DRI are alternative ways of making iron units used in subsequent steelmaking. They must not be counted as additional crude-steel production alongside the EAF/IF output they feed.

2. Recalculate each production route

For a material m, define scenario demand as:

Dₘ = Σᵣ (Qᵣ × cₘ,ᵣ)

Here Qᵣ is the actual or projected output of a defined production process r; cₘ,ᵣ is its material or energy requirement per unit; and Dₘ is the resulting demand for m over the same period. Where two processes feed one another, first balance their internal transfers to avoid double-counting.

The method compares a base route mix with an alternative route mix and reports ΔDₘ = Dₘ(alternative) − Dₘ(base) for every relevant input. Net electricity demand requires the sum of changes across all affected processes. Material-quality requirements also affect usable ore and scrap fractions.

3. A deliberately limited worked application

The original Upfront reports that the draft policy's Annexure II-B uses 55% BOF, 30% EAF and 15% IF in an indicative 2047 steelmaking mix. The same article records 531 million tonnes of intended crude-steel production and a discussion of DRI, coal and future route shifts. These are draft-policy assumptions as presented in October 2026, not settled forecasts.

Consider an explicitly illustrative sensitivity case in which five percentage points of crude-steel production shift from BOF to EAF, while total output remains constant. At 531 million tonnes, that represents 26.55 million tonnes of output changing route. Its resource consequences cannot be calculated from route shares alone. The modeller must supply comparable charge mixtures, scrap availability, DRI requirements, quality losses and electricity coefficients for both routes.

No claim about resulting tonnes of ore saved, tonnes of coal avoided or hydrogen required is defensible until those inputs are verified. The worksheet records missing, not zero.

4. A decision record for each scenario

The reviewer records the highest-consequence missing assumption and its evidence owner. Where supporting scrap or electricity supply lacks a deliverable basis, classify the scenario as conditional. Modelled savings are not achieved output.

5. Decision authority and limits

The Ministry of Steel can maintain policy scenarios; steelmakers choose and finance plant technology subject to applicable approvals. Ore, rail, power and port authorities hold separate infrastructure decisions. A national resource review must identify those separate infrastructure authorities and the decisions each controls.

This Framework does not repair every inconsistency in the draft policy or create a numerical decarbonisation pathway from incomplete coefficients. It makes each technological assumption visible enough to be revised and compared when evidence changes.

Source and further reading

Originating analysis: India's 2047 Steel Goals Need a Route-Sensitive Resource Plan, Rishi Vora, 12 October 2026. Related Issue Hub: Issue 4 — The Execution Gap.

Status: Original INDIA FRONT scenario method. The figures quoted above belong to a draft policy as reported in the source article. The illustrative route shift is a mathematical example, not an adopted steel pathway.