Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to Q2 FY 2026 conference call of Lords Chloro Alkali Limited. 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 touchstone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Smit Shah from Adfactors PR. Thank you, and over to you.
Yeah. Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us on the Q2 and H1 FY 2026 results conference call of Lords Chloro Alkali Limited. We have with us Mr. Ajay Virmani , Managing Director, and Mr. Madhav Dhir, Executive Director. Before we begin, I would like to remind that certain statements made in today's discussion may be forward-looking in nature and may involve certain risks and uncertainties. A detailed statement in this regard is available in the Q2 and H1 FY 2026 results presentation that has been uploaded on the stock exchanges. I now hand over the call to Mr. Ajay Virmani to begin the proceedings. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Hello, everyone. I'm Ajay Virmani , Managing Director of Lords Chloro Alkali Limited. I welcome you to the amazing conference call of the company. I'd like to verify that we are taking our time.
I'm sorry, sir. Your voice is a little muffled. Can you just repeat, please?
Yeah. So I'm just beginning, and I welcome everyone and thank you for joining in. Today's call is special for us. In the beginning of the session, we shall call the.
I'm sorry, sir. It is muffled. What I would suggest is I'll try calling you on the alternate number, okay, because it is coming muffled. Give me a moment, please.
Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, kindly stay connected. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for holding. We have the management team back on the call, so you may go ahead, please.
Yeah. Okay. Sorry for the interruption. Just to reintroduce, I'm Ajay Virmani , Managing Director of the company. I hope I'm coming out clear and loud to everybody right now. Today's call is special because it is the beginning of a new chapter for us where we not only share our financial results but also the strategic transformation and long-term vision of the company. This company was incorporated in 1979 by Modi Group of Industries, and this company was operating. We took it over in 2006 under the BIFR scheme, and we sort of revitalized the company. This facility is on 84 acres of land in Alwar, Rajasthan, and we make caustic soda, chlorine, hydrogen, bleaching powder, CPW, and HCL.
The products which have very, very wide applications into many industries, which are the building block of any economy, into paper, alumina, textiles, soaps, and pharma, and other chemicals. Over the last few years, Lords Chloro has undergone a significant transformation from a traditional chemical manufacturer into a modern sustainability-driven company. We currently operate a plant which is 300 tons per day of caustic soda and a 50-ton plant of CPW, and HCl also around 200 tons per day. The CPW capacity is being ramped up to go to 100 tons per day. Also, the other capacities are also increasing, but I'll ask Madhav to touch upon these later after me on our future expansion plans and the numbers. The expansion in all this will enhance captive chlorine consumption, improve cost stability, and strengthen our downstream product mix.
Energy is a critical cost for our business, accounting for nearly 55% of the total production cost. Taking cue from this, we took a major step in financial year 2025 by commissioning a 16 megawatt renewable solar plant in Bikaner, Rajasthan. It is meeting almost 10% of our power requirements, resulting in annual savings of INR 12 crore and reducing our carbon footprint by around 17,000 tons, equivalent to planting eight and a half lakh trees every year. Building on this success, we have acquired a 26% equity stake in a hybrid energy park being operated by Continuum Energy, which will give us 10 megawatts of hybrid energy of solar and wind put together. This will bring in an additional 12-15% of our power requirements. Our renewable footprint will go to around 25%. Additionally, we are now embarking upon an additional 21 megawatt of solar plant.
Our renewable footprint will go up to 40-50% of our power requirements. The transition will make us one of the few chemical companies in India with such a high renewable energy share while stabilizing margins and reducing exposure to energy price rise. Together, these initiatives are helping us evolve into a green chemical company. Probably, we would be the only company having almost 40-50% green footprint, caustic soda, I would say, having 40-50% green footprint in India or anywhere in the world, maybe. I'll just touch upon the industry in general in India. The total capacity is around 6 million tons, and the production is 5-5.5 million tons. The capacity utilization factor is around 85%, which worldwide is also around 82-83%. The industry is operating at a very good level.
When we say 85%, since the capacity is counted on 365 days, 24/7, the plant shutdowns for maintenance and everything, so 85% is like utilizing it to full. The whole industry is operating at a very reasonable and a very good capacity utilization. The worldwide demand is around 102 million. Indian production is roughly around 6% of the total world demand. India has a lot of catching up to do with the world. China is around 42-44 million tons. India has announced almost 2-2.5 million tons of capacity expansion coming up in the next three years with a lot of chlorine tie-ups on the PVC side. We see India emerging onto the world scale in caustic soda and chlorine capacities.
Also now, for the last two, three years, India was an importing country for caustic soda, but now India has become an exporting hub. This year, we should be exporting nearly 1 million tons of caustic soda all over the world. The share of Indian caustic soda is going to increase over the years as a lot of European capacities are shutting down because of high energy cost, which is going to be very good for the Indian industry and the expansions which are coming up in India. What I'll do is now I'll just pass on to Madhav to explain about the CapEx which we have done and the CapExes which we are going to do and touch upon the numbers. I'm sure numbers are with you people.
We declared the results yesterday, so you must have seen the numbers, but anyway, I'll touch upon all that. Over to you, Madhav.
Thank you, Ajay Dee. Good afternoon, everyone. As Ajay Dee suggested, everyone actually has the numbers. I'll just quickly take you through the financial performance of September 30, 2025. Total income for this H1 was INR 201 crore, which is a growth of approximately 59% year on year. Operating margins also significantly grew in H1 FY 2026 to about 20.76% or equivalent to INR 41.78 crore. Profit after tax also significantly recovered from H1 year on year, because they were subdued last year. Now, moving to the second quarter performance specifically, total income stood at about INR 100 crore in Q2, similar to Q1. In comparison to year on year, it was INR 60.86 crore in Q2 FY 2025. EBITDA for this quarter stood at INR 21.09 crore, similar to last quarter as well. EBITDA margin for this quarter stood at about 20.93%, which is healthy numbers.
Notably, we reduced our energy costs per ton significantly from 51% to 39%. This is due to the solar plant that we set up, as well as the energy mix reducing because of the addition of CPW as against revenue. As a result, the profit of this quarter stood at about INR 9.04 crore in comparison to INR 0.36 crore in Q2 FY 2025. Looking ahead, our strategy is built on clear four priorities. First, through cost leadership through renewable energy, we are on track, as Ajay Virmani mentioned, to reach about 40-45% and 40-45% in renewable power integration, which will make our operation significantly more efficient and sustainable. I would now like to briefly talk about the CapEx journey we have had over the last one or two years, what is ongoing, and what will go on subsequent to our announcements yesterday.
In terms of our CapEx journey, between FY 2024 to 2025, we have invested approximately INR 150 crore primarily in expansion of caustic soda from 210 tons per day to 300 tons per day, CPW from 20 tons per day to 50 tons per day, and the 16-megawatt solar power plant based in Bikaner. Ongoing and current projects approximately amount to INR 40 crore. This includes CPW capacity expansion from 50 tons per day to 100 tons per day. Significantly, after seeing the results from the power that we are taking from Bikaner and our captive solar plant, we entered into a power purchase agreement and a share purchase agreement with Continuum to supply us 10 megawatts of wind solar hybrid. Together with these projects, 25% of our energy will be from renewable sources.
Subsequently, I would like to talk about the CapExes that we have announced yesterday and how our renewable mix will be subsequent to those CapExes as well. Yesterday, we announced a further CapEx of INR 165 crore, which includes expanding our caustic soda from 300 tons- 400 tons. However, we will be also shutting down a 40-ton-per-day plant. This plant was a little more inefficient compared to our other electrolyzers. As such, our total installed capacity will be 360 tons subsequent to the expansion. We're also adding sulfuric acid not only to diversify our product mix, but also for the steam generated through sulfuric acid, which might bring down our costs in the boilers. We're also adding another solar power capacity of 21 megawatts. Again, this is in captive use. This will also help reduce our cost and roughly bring our renewable power mix to between 40-50%.
The total CapEx outlay for these three projects is approximately INR 165 crore. And put together, between FY 2024 and 2028, the total CapEx amount is roughly INR 355 crore. I appreciate everyone's time regarding the CapExes. I will hand over the call to Smit if he has any inferences or anything.
Should we start with the question and answer session, sir?
Yeah, please do.
Yeah. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on the touchstone 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. We'll take our first question from the line of Shubham from RV Investments. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Am I audible?
Shubham?
Hi.
Shubham, we cannot hear you.
Hello?
Yes, Shubham. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. I want to ask if what I have given the guidance for INR 165 crore, can you please divide up in these financial years how much you will be implementing in H2 and then FY 2027?
See, all these projects have a gestation period of one year to 18 months. The CapEx will start. In fact, the CapEx will be starting from now, and the project commissioning will be spread over. Let's say the solar plant will get commissioned over six to seven months, and the other plants may take 12 months to 18 months to come up. The CapExes are going to be spread over the next, let's say, three and a half years.
Thank you. Hello.
Yeah. I hope you heard me correct.
Oh, can you please repeat the last sentence, sir?
I said that the project commissionings are going to start. The solar will get commissioned by March, April. The other plants will take almost 12-18 months to get commissioned. The CapEx will also happen as per the progress of the project. The money will keep getting deployed over the next maybe four to five quarters or so.
Okay, sir. What are your revenue guidance for FY2026 and FY2027 as you are increasing the capacity again?
Can you repeat your question a little louder, please?
Sir, what are your revenue guidance for the coming year and the coming half of the year as you have said that you will increase your capacity from 300- 400 tons per day?
See, that capacity will come up next year, sometime in the third quarter.
Yeah. So basically.
For the next three quarters, we would expect the same kind of revenue to continue.
Okay. Basically, INR 100 crore after INR 100 crore.
If it has been augmented, only then the revenue will go up, right?
Okay, sir. Thank you.
Bye.
Thank you. We'll take our next question from the line of Prachi Badade from Philip Capital. Please go ahead.
Hello, sir. Congratulations on good set of numbers. Also, what is your view on caustic soda prices currently? Do you feel now it has been bottom out? With that four-year cycle, how overall, if we see the realization per kg also, it has dipped a little bit if we compare quarter-on-quarter basis. Last quarter, it was INR 47. Now it has gone to INR 46. What are your view on that? Second question was on do we expect stability in the EBITDA margin going forward since we are now coming up with a solar plant as well? Yeah.
This four-year cycle has been holding true for many years, but the world scenario is changing a lot because of Mr. Trump and a lot of capacity being coming or getting scrapped in China. Of course, the price has been pretty steady for the last, I would say, three quarters now. We can say that last year was bottoming out. Now I feel that upsurge has started into the price. Prices, I feel, are going to be pretty stable in the next few months or so. This is a commodity you can't predict for a very, very long time. I would say in the coming, at least, say, two quarters, the prices are going to be pretty stable. Your other question was about the renewable bringing stability.
Of course, as Madhav mentioned, the cost of power is around 50-55%, which is now coming down because of renewables. Naturally, any wageries of prices in the Indian or international market will get evened out by the renewable footprint. It will bring in at least stability to the profitability of the company, for sure.
Okay, sir.
Thank you, Prachi.
Yeah. That was your question, right? Okay. Thank you. We'll take our next question from the line of Pujan Shah from Molecule Ventures. Please go ahead.
Hello, Madhav.
Can you use your handset mode, please, Pujan? Your audio is not very clear.
Am I clear now?
Yes. Please go ahead.
Sir, just wanted to understand your view on caustic soda expansion. We understand that we are shutting down a 40 TPD plant, and additionally, incremental, the new capacity will be coming 60 TPD. Just wanted to understand the dynamics because two giant companies have been announcing their caustic soda expansion already. I understand that their use case is to ultimately use the chlorine for the PVC part. Wanted to understand your view because if we look at the 6 million tons capacity in India as well, which is operating right now at 80-82% utilization, I still feel that the caustic soda in India has been suffering in terms of pricing. Just wanted to know why we are expanding specific in caustic soda. Is it due to value-addition products which we have been incorporating, like CPW, or we are seeing something else in terms of market?
I'll tell you. I'll be a little elaborate on this. The Indian market works as far as we go into islands. One is the West Island, the other is the North Island. North Island is north of India and west of India. We are in north of India. All the capacity expansions which are coming up are coming up in west of India. If anybody has to bring the material from west to up north, they'll have to spend almost INR 6,000-7,000 as a freight on caustic soda, which roughly is around 20%, 25%, or 22% of the cost of caustic soda, which is very, very huge. It becomes very prohibitive for any Western player to come to and sell it in north India. The demand for caustic soda, like I mentioned, 6 million tons is the capacity.
We are operating around 80-85% capacity utilization, which is like 100% capacity utilization. The demand is growing at around 5-6% every year. That means we are adding roughly 333,333 tons every year. All these capacity expansions which are coming up, Reliance may be starting next year end and Adani in 2027-2028. By that time, the Indian demand would have grown by almost 1,000,000 tons or a little more. They both are coming out with 2,000,000 tons in phases. India was exporting only 500,000 tons last year, which is going up to 1,000,000 tons this year. India is also expanding into the worldwide trade. India is taking more and more share of the export market.
Like I mentioned in the beginning, European capacities are shutting down because of high energy costs. Both these high-capacity plants of Adani and Reliance are on the port, and they're best suited to take the advantage of the European market. Of course, there will be some upheavals when such a big capacity comes in. I see that maybe upheaval of a year or two, then things will smooth out because the Indian economy is also growing. Caustic soda is one product which is very well linked to the growth of the economy. All the products which are done from caustic soda are very, very heavily linked with the growth of the economy.
Secondly, if there will be some dip in caustic soda prices, the chlorine prices should be able to make up for it because these two plants will use all the chlorine captive. When we say that the caustic soda demand is going up by 5-6%, in the other way, we are saying that even the chlorine demand is also going up by a similar number because you cannot produce caustic without chlorine. When we are doing that, where is the extra chlorine going to come from? The price of chlorine we expect to go up when the caustic capacity comes in. As far as the ECU number goes, the chlorine and caustic put together, I do not foresee much of a dip there. I think things will even out with the capacities and demand taking care of it.
Sir, just adding to this point, so understanding how much chlorine we have been using captively, it is 100% right now?
No, no, no. Roughly, I would say we sell almost 40-45% of our chlorine outside to the other customers.
Okay. Got it. Sir, you have been mentioning about the European capacity being closing out in phases. I just wanted to know what is the European capacity right now, the installed capacity? What you have been reading is how much capacity has been planned to get shut down? What is the broad criteria you have been looking into? Ultimately, the demand would be coming to the Eastern countries like China or India. That would be the only case. I just wanted to understand the European side.
See, the European capacity, as I said last year, was around 12-15 million tons. Almost, I think, 300,000-400,000 ton capacity has shut down already this year. The operating rate of the European plant is 60-70% right now because the energy cost is very high. Even if, slowly, slowly, I think they will not be able to compete. Almost 10 million tons of demand, which is there, maybe another additional 5-6 million tons will shut down. Five to six million, they will keep producing because of the integration of their products with the plants, because some plants need chlorine for operations of the chlorine derivatives. I foresee that a lot of demand will come from Europe that way, almost 4-5 million tons over the next few years.
Of course, India will not take everything of it. A lot of demand is getting created in Far East. Indonesia and Africa have become big hubs for Indian exports also. It is not just Europe, but Indonesia and Australia also, for that matter, where we are competing with Japan and China. Africa also is now consuming. A lot of industrial insertion is happening in Africa. The products are going there also. Right now, India is exporting to almost 50-55 countries around the globe.
Got it, sir. Just to understand the expansion part, we have been planning to spend around INR 165 crore amount in expansion. Just wanted to know how we are planning for it. Will it be internal accruals? Will it be debt funded? How will it be?
See, the whole INR 165 crore is not just for expansion. Quite a part of it is for the solar plant also. Naturally, it will be a mix of debt and equity. We have not decided because it will all depend on the internal accruals of the company. Definitely, some debt will come in. What is the mix of debt and equity? I think it is yet to be finalized.
There is no intention to raise by equity, right?
We have a warrant issue coming up, which will, I think, the January is the last date for completing that warrant issue. That warrant issue was for around INR 44 crore. 25% of it has already come in. I see that INR 32 crore of money coming through the equity route also.
Got it, sir. I just want to understand the Chinese economy that has been right now and the involvement going on. Do you think that would be benefiting us in the coming one to two years? The Chinese guys are always strict about their norms and regulations. I just wanted to understand that part.
I missed out your first two lines about the China thing. What did you say?
China has been right now focusing on anti-involution, in which they have been deciding to close down or shut down the capacities, which has been incompetent and making losses. I just wanted to understand, do these capacities being shut down will be benefiting to us, or it will?
China is a—I tell you, China is a very, very opaque wall, one thing. But whatever I have studied because I was the president of Alkali Manufacturing Association for two years. I completed my two years just in September. I have been well entrenched into the world market on this. I will tell you that the capacities, they have shut down, but they are shifting capacities. China is a big country, so they are moving to remote areas for hazardous chemicals. The total capacity in China has not come down. Rather, they have announced almost 4 million tons of capacity over the next two years. Their share was around 41 million tons out of the total world of 101 million tons, which is expected to go up to around 45-46 million tons in the next two to three years.
Whatever is shutting down, the new capacities are coming up in the remote areas and bigger capacity plants.
Got it. Last question would be on the power commissioning, which we expect in the next three, six, seven months. I just wanted to understand, after the commissioning of the additional power solar grid, so just wanted to understand, will it be 25% of an internal consumption will be from power, or it will be less than that?
I'll ask Madhav to come up.
We have currently a 16-megawatt solar power plant in Bikaner that contributes to about 10% of our energy. We've also signed a share purchase agreement and power purchase agreement with a company called Continuum, which will provide us 10-megawatt wind solar hybrid, which will additionally contribute 15% to our renewable energy mix. In total, we'll be at 25%. Subsequent to which, we have also announced yesterday another 21-megawatt project in Bikaner. Put together, that will add another 15% at least. At that point, in approximately by April, May, we'll be at 40-45% of renewable energy. The intent with renewable energy is not only necessarily carbon saving.
It is also the fact that it improves our cost structure entirely because our caustic soda plant primarily takes electricity at the moment from the grid, where the grid rate is significantly higher than the price at which we generate electricity through our solar plants and/or purchase electricity through Continuum group captive project.
Got it. Last bookkeeping question would be, what is the current ECUs right now prevailing in North?
It is around INR 37,000.
What was on QoQ and YOY basis? Can you just share that?
See, offhand, I can just say that for the last two quarters, it is on a similar line. I would say for the last three quarters, and the two previous.
Okay. Okay. Got it. Thank you so much.
Thank you. We'll take a next question from the line of Shubham Padiar from Ras Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi. Am I audible?
Yes. Please go ahead.
Yeah. First of all, I want to thank, congratulate the entire team of Lords Chloro Alkali for the great performance till now.
Thank you.
I just had a suggestion if we can segregate revenues based on caustic and other products because I feel chlorine derivatives are getting higher realization than caustic. If that's possible, it would be a great help.
You want to understand as to what is the revenue stream separated, caustic and chlorine? That is what was your question?
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so currently, this quarter, we—high, right? If we can just bifurcate caustic revenues and if other, let's say, chlorine products, just to understand the realization.
Immediately tell you, I can very broadly tell you that caustic and its products constitute the majority of the revenue. The other revenues are not very high. What is the?
CSR revenue is about 80% of.
It is around 80% of this quarter. The caustic soda revenue is around 80%. The other revenues do not have much kind of impact on the profitability. Because chlorine, as it is, is a negative product. Whatever we make out of it, say that we make CPW, we are able to get positivity on that. Otherwise, chlorine, whether in West or anywhere in the world, for that matter, except US, is a negative product.
Okay. Understood. Also, since you said a lot of demand might be coming from Europe, are we planning to do any exports anytime soon, or is it going to focus on North Indian market only because of cost advantage that we have?
See, being in Alwar, in Rajasthan, is good and bad both ways. Good is that nobody from West can come and sell in North. That way, the similar way, it is very difficult for us to export because we have to pay a similar kind of rate if we have to export. It may work sometime if somebody is willing to pay a premium for a green caustic soda, which we are going to be making in future. If you get a premium, yes. If somebody says, "Fine, I'll give you only a preference, but not a kind of any price advantage," then the exports may not work out for us. I do not foresee it working out for us in the short term because we are able to get a better price in our North market.
Understood. Just one last question on the solar CapEx that we are doing. What would be the probable payback period for these CapEx on solar plants?
It's pretty good. It's very encouraging and pretty good. I would say the time period is going to be much, much shorter than a normal industrial product is because there is a huge difference between the grid price and the power which you produce, solar power produced. The payback is going to be much faster than a normal industrial. Normal industry, we expect six to seven years for it to pay back. This should be quite accelerated from that.
Okay. So I mean, I'm assuming it might be lesser than five years, is not correct?
I would presume so, yes.
Okay. Yes. That's it from my side. Thank you.
Thanks.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Darshil Jhaveri from Crown Capital. Please go ahead.
Hello. Good morning, sir. Thank you so much for taking my question. Hopefully, I'm audible.
Can you use your handset mode, please, Darshil?
Yeah. Just give me one second.
Hello. Hope this is better.
Yes. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Yeah. Hi. So a lot of my questions have been answered. Just one point I wanted to understand. We are saying a lot of solar power will come online by April month, April or May month. Going forward, our margin should be even better than what we are doing right now, right? Because we've already reached nearly 19-20%. What could be the margin that we can expect?
I would prefer not to give a percentage claim. I would rather say that we do expect EBITDA margins to improve significantly subsequent to the solar project commissioning, other than any vagaries that come from the price sensitivity of commodity chemicals like caustic soda. If all else remains the same, EBITDA margins should significantly improve subsequent to our solar plant coming online.
Could you, if possible, just give me a range or in terms of power cost, how much would we save per unit or something? That would just help us if that's possible.
I would hand over the call to Ajay G. So yeah. You see, the grid rate is around INR 8 right now, landed power. The contracts, the solar contracts which are happening around for CapEx thing are roughly around INR 2.75-3. The OpEx contract, which we did with Continuum, is INR 4.5. You can see that there is a vast difference between the grid power and the power which we produce. It all depends on the percentage points that how much we are able to convert to CapEx, OpEx. It is a combination. How much we are able to reduce the grid kind of dependability on the grid power. Like Madhav said, we may gain here, but we may lose if the prices go down.
We are actually trying to have a stable trend line on the profits by increasing our renewable footprint. Of course, the more and more it is a question of choice of going CapEx or OpEx in future, which will have different cost points and then the average landed cost will happen depending on the percentage of renewable we are able to bring in. Like the price points on what you produce and what is the OpEx price and what is the grid price.
Okay. Okay. Fair enough, sir. I just wanted to know with regards to the CapEx that we did in FY 2025, the 90 TPD caustic soda. So that's completely utilized, right? Right now, it's working at full optimal utilization, right?
Yeah. Yeah. Like I said, 85% capacity utilization all over India, so same as ours.
Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. Basically, till the new CapEx comes in, like the one that you're trying to do for the 100 TPD and the sulfuric, our revenue should be rangebound depending on caustic soda price, obviously. Is that a fair assumption, sir?
See, I would ask you and because we look at the whole picture in two parts. One is the revenue part, and the other is the cost part. Sometimes you focus on revenue, sometimes you focus on bringing down your cost. All these projects which we are announcing and we are saying have two parts built into this. One is increasing of the revenue. The other part is bringing down the cost. The bringing down cost part will be faster with time because of the solar plants getting operational earlier, easier to operate, easier to commission comparatively. Naturally, till the time the other CapExes complete, the revenue side, the total top line may not increase. Of course, the bottom line will be held by the solar plant.
When you are looking at our company, kindly look at it from both the sides, not just from the, don't evaluate this just by if you have a stable top line, does not mean that the bottom line may not go up. It is not linked to the top line increase.
No, no. I understand that. Yeah. That's what I wanted to know about our savings from solar plant. Just wanted to get an overall picture of the company for the next year. That's all.
Yeah. What happens is that the top line CapExes will take a little longer to materialize than the bottom line CapExes.
Oh, fair enough, sir. Fair enough. And just last bookkeeping question from my end, sir. What is our effective tax rate? Because I think last year was around 25%, but this quarter, it's 36%. So I just wanted to get what will be our average tax rate going forward?
The average tax rate is around 25%. Just that we had some carryforward losses from previous years which got absorbed in the last quarter. So this time, the tax incidence is a little higher than the previous quarter.
Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. Fair enough, sir. Yeah. That's it from my side, sir. Thank you so much. All the best.
Thanks.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Manoj Rajani from Rajani Family Office. Please go ahead.
Hi. Am I audible?
Yes. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you so much for the opportunity. Congratulations, sir, on the good set of numbers. Sir, just wanted to ask one thing that I guess we had a CapEx of about INR 100-150 crore within one or two years. I guess this question has been asked. Wanted to understand the debt to equity mix of this particular CapEx.
Between INR 152 crores was the total CapEx , about the CapEx that had just been completed last quarter. So I believe it was INR 60 crores was internal crores and INR 92 crores was debt. I have our CFO with us here as well. Is that it?
90 crores for download.
Okay. Okay. INR 90 crore turnload, sir, and INR 60 crore internal crores.
Yeah. That leads to my second question, sir. Just wanted to understand what is the optimal debt to equity mix that we are looking at. Since I can see in the presentation, in the first presentation of 2023, that the ratio was about 0.09, and right now it's about 0.6, if I'm not wrong. Just what is the management to maintain it at?
I hear you're muffled, Manoj. Can you just repeat the last part?
Yeah. I'm just saying that what is the optimal equity ratio that management is aiming at?
See, we are trying to keep it around one for our future expansions also. Maybe a little over one, but not too high. I think one, 1.2 is a very, very comfortable debt equity ratio. Normally, the companies are operating at 1.5 or so. We do not plan to touch 1.5 at all.
Okay.
I think with the future CapEx also, we should remain in the region of around 1.1 or so.
Okay. I actually joined late, so sorry if this question might be repeated. What would be the payback period of our solar plan?
I think I explained that in the previous question only, but I'll just repeat it very shortly. I would say it is very, very accelerated to a normal industrial payback. Normal industrial payback is around 6-7 years, but it should be below 5 for a solar plant.
Okay. And sir, just one last question. Since it's a commodity-based business, there must be price fluctuations in our product. Any plans to move towards any high-value products?
Don't think so.
In a gradual phase?
Don't think so. We have a lot of mileage to cover in caustic soda and its domain. We are studying a few products, but all are on drawing board stage as of today. Right now, we are concentrating on our own products, which we do. There's a lot of market and scope to expand in this, which is what we are doing right now.
I think the intent is to build in significant margin within this business itself. I think that is the primary goal, to focus on caustic soda and allied chemicals, as well as building a very good margin within this business itself prior to moving into new business. As Ajay Ji mentioned, we do study it, but they are all on drawing phase, and we have a long way to go primarily in building margin and building revenues from caustic before moving to other avenues.
Understood. What kind of numbers can we expect this year? I mean, margin?
The two quarters have we are almost INR 200 crore. Since no capacity is getting added into the next two quarters, I think the prices are similar. They go up and down. There might be a little up and down in the top line from INR 100 crore of this quarter. Roughly, it should hold, and we can look at a number of INR 400 crore or a little plus on that.
Okay. What is our capacity utilization at the moment?
Almost 80-85%.
Okay. That's quite optimal. Yeah. That's it from my side, sir. Thank you.
Thanks.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of N. Modi, an individual investor. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good afternoon. My question is regarding other income. This quarter, we have shown INR 24.2 million as other income. And in six months, we have shown INR 26.9 million. Is it regular in nature?
No, this is a one-time thing. It was a scrap sale because when we did the CapEx last time, a lot of old things were dismantled. The metal prices have gone up. These are old pipelines or things like that. We were able to fetch a good price. This is a one-time thing, not every quarter thing.
Okay. Other things have already been ensured. Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question for today. I now hand the conference over to management for closing comments. Over to you, sir.
Okay. Thank everybody for taking our time and showing interest in our company. Our company is well on the way to progress both ways, increasing our footprint in the market share and also increasing our profitability by controlling our costs in a big way. Hope to be and talk to you many more times in the coming years or so. We then can monitor the progress of our company together. I'll give it to Madhav to say a word or two, thanking everybody. Thanks.
I thank and appreciate everyone for their time and for joining us on our main earnings calls. It was definitely our first call, but we expect to hold earnings calls. Please request everyone to join us, as Ajay Ji mentioned, to monitor the progress of our company after every quarterly result. Appreciate everyone's time. If you have any further questions, you can always reach out to me personally or Adfactors through Smith. He will be sharing his email ID shortly and mine. If there are any follow-up questions, we are happy to answer them as well.
Thank you, sir.
Thank you.
Yeah. On behalf of Lords Chloro Alkali Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines.
Thank you.