India's coal demand growth is shifting from power generation toward industry. Steel, sponge iron and cement plants are taking a growing share of incremental supply — a structural change that affects coal pricing, allocation and logistics for industrial buyers. For the metals chain the shift signals two things at once: firm industrial activity, and continued competition for fuel between the power sector and the furnaces. Energy-intensive producers, ferro alloy smelters among them, plan around exactly this balance of availability and cost.