Chaman Metallics is a steel company that has spent the last few years turning itself from a single-product sponge iron maker into a fully integrated plant - one that now feeds its own iron into its own furnaces and powers the whole operation with its own electricity. The company was founded in 2003, but its current trajectory began in 2019 when the GR Group, a steel-industry house active since 1996, bought it and overhauled its Chandrapur, Maharashtra factory. The recurring logic is vertical integration: every new step - melting, ferro alloys, captive power - is designed to consume the output of the step before it, cutting out middlemen and external suppliers.
Business segments
Four engines built in sequence - a sponge iron base that feeds a steel-melting furnace, a ferro-alloy unit that diversifies the product slate, and a captive power plant that runs the whole site on waste heat and coal.
1. Sponge iron: the raw material that everything else runs on
The company makes Direct Reduced Iron in rotary kilns, sells it to steelmakers, and now uses a growing share of it in its own billet plant - the foundation of the integrated chain.
- The first step in steelmaking - sponge iron (also called DRI) is a high-purity metallic input that electric arc and induction furnaces need to make steel; the company’s product carries roughly 90-92% total iron and 81-84% metallic iron.
- Located next to the raw materials - the Chandrapur factory sits in a mineral-rich belt with abundant mines, including those of Western Coalfields Limited, which lowers transport costs and keeps input supply consistent.
- Coal supply locked in for a decade - the company holds fuel supply agreements with Western Coalfields for 2,000 tonnes a year and with South Eastern Coalfields for a combined 38,000 tonnes annually, each running for 10 years or the life of the mine, so the kilns have long-term fuel visibility.
- Capacity has more than doubled - the original two kilns could make 72,000 tonnes per year; in April 2025 a new 1,15,500-tonne line was commissioned, taking total installed capacity to 1,87,500 tonnes, and consent has been granted to add another 1,65,000 tonnes.
- Waste becomes fuel - the kilns produce a solid by-product called dolochar, which is captured and burned in the company’s own power plant, so a disposal problem turns into a cost saving.
2. Steel billets: the forward-integration engine
The company melts its own sponge iron in induction furnaces to produce semi-finished steel billets - capturing the margin that used to go to its customers.
- Sponge iron’s biggest internal customer - the billet plant is designed to convert in-house sponge iron into MS billets, the raw material that rolling mills use to make bars, rods and structural steel.
- Four furnaces, not three - the company deliberately shifted from three 20-tonne-per-day furnaces to four 15-tonne units, so that if one goes down for maintenance the plant loses only 25% of capacity instead of a third.
- Built in phases - as of April 2025, consent to operate covered 1,48,500 tonnes per year out of a planned 1,98,000 tonnes, with the balance expected within months; the full investment was ₹64.55 Crore.
- Sold into the domestic market - billets are targeted at Indian steel re-rollers, keeping the product close to home and within the company’s existing customer geography.
3. Ferro alloys and cast iron: the diversification play
A submerged arc furnace makes high-value metallurgical inputs - ferro manganese, silico manganese, pig iron and ferro silicon - for steelmakers and foundries, both at home and abroad.
- A different furnace, a different product family - unlike the induction furnaces that make billets, the submerged arc furnace smelts manganese ore, coal and coke to produce alloys that steelmakers add in small doses to adjust the properties of their steel.
- Launched with a BIS licence in hand - the unit began trial runs in March 2025; by December 2025 it had secured a Bureau of Indian Standards certification for silicomanganese, which is a prerequisite for selling to quality-conscious buyers.
- Export-ready from day one - the product lines target both domestic and international markets, giving the company a second revenue geography beyond its traditional central-Indian steel belt.
- Raw material sourcing began ahead of commissioning - procurement of manganese ore, coal and coke started in March 2025, so the furnace could fire up without delay.
4. Captive power: the plant that pays for itself
A 30-megawatt power station - half waste-heat recovery, half coal-fired - generates electricity at roughly half the grid price, slashing the cost of running the entire factory.
- Two generation methods, one plant - a 12 MW Waste Heat Recovery Boiler captures hot flue gases from the steelmaking process that would otherwise be vented, while an 18 MW coal-fired fluidized-bed unit provides the balance; together they meet the full post-expansion electricity load.
- Power at ₹4-4.5 a unit instead of ₹9 - management estimated that in-house generation would save roughly ₹4.5-5 per unit compared with grid power, a saving that flows directly to the cost base of every product the company makes.
- Waste heat cuts both cost and emissions - the WHRB unit reduces CO₂ output by using flue gases that would otherwise go up the stack, and the company has consent to add another 13 MW of waste-heat capacity.
- Dolochar closes the loop - the solid char by-product from the sponge iron kilns is fed as fuel into the power plant, so the company burns its own waste to generate electricity.
Group structure and partners
Chaman Metallics is a standalone company with no subsidiaries, but it sits inside a family-controlled steel group that supplies it with raw materials, shares expertise, and has just built a pellet plant that feeds directly into its kilns.
- No subsidiaries or joint ventures - the company has no associate, subsidiary or joint venture entity, so its financial structure is simple and its operations are contained within a single corporate shell.
- Part of the GR Group since 2019 - the group has been in steel since 1996, starting with a single rolling mill, Ramesh Steel Industries, and now spans sponge iron, ferro alloys, ingots and re-rolled products.
- A captive pellet supplier came online in 2024 - G.R. Integrated Steel Private Limited, a subsidiary of the holding company, began operating a pellet plant in Berla, Chhattisgarh in September 2024, which is expected to improve the quality and security of pellet supply for Chaman Metallics’ sponge iron kilns.
- Arm’s-length dealing within the group - the company may supply surplus raw materials, spare parts or finished products to group entities and receive services in return, with all transactions conducted at arm’s length.
- Bank funding has scaled with the business - State Bank of India enhanced its sanctioned limits from ₹210 crore to ₹335 crore in March 2025 to support the expanded operations, and the company carries an ACUITE A- (Stable) long-term rating.