Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to Birla Corporation Q1 FY2026 earnings Conference Call. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during this conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touch-tone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Rajesh Kumar Ravi, HDFC Securities. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Hi. Good afternoon, everyone. On behalf of HDFC Securities, I welcome you all to the Q1 FY2026 Conference Call of Birla Corporation Limited. From the management side, we have Mr. Sandip Ghose, MD & CEO, and Mr. Aditya Saraogi, Group CFO. I will now hand over the call to the management team. Post their opening remarks, we will open the floor for questions. Over to you, Sandip sir.
Very good afternoon to everybody, and thank you so much for joining despite numbers. Though I have been reminded just before the conference that probably our timing is not very correct. It eats literally into a lot of your lunchtime. So we consider next time whether we should keep it at 2:00 or a little later than keep all of you hungry or interrupt your lunch break. So good to have everybody here, and I will come straight to the brass tacks without too much of a preamble or going round. I sense and for the few people who have called us, et cetera, there is a slight dishonor or surprise at the kind of results we have done in terms of what were being expected by many of you as well as in the market.
I would like to put it in context so that you understand the basis, because this is something we encounter every quarter, irrespective of whether the quarter has gone very well or not so well. Even when it goes very well, sometimes there is an element of surprise there. When things are not according to expectation, also I think there is a degree of confusion. That is probably what is not understood very clearly to our mind is the changing business profile of Birla Corporation over the few years. Initially, of course, market took into notice our acquisition of Reliance. Post-acquisition of Reliance, things have also further undergone some amount of structural changes. At each stage, and it will probably keep happening as we go forward.
The most significant one, as you would know, in the last two years has been Mukutban and the rapid scaling up of Mukutban. Simultaneously, there have other things happened, like our Chanderia expansion, which had happened earlier. The utilization of Chanderia, although it was high, but now its utilization in the core market has gone up significantly, and that's linked to how those markets have performed now vis-a-vis some other markets in the neighboring regions. To be clear, what I'm trying to say is Chanderia caters for us a large part of the traditional north, but in our terminology, we look at also Western MP and Western U.P. as part of Chanderia's reach.
Sometimes it can even, in terms of clinker not necessarily in terms of cement, we could be even taking Chanderia clinker all the way down to center if the demand in that area, center and east is different. That's company. Always seen this Mukutban as a very integral part of our larger footprint map. I recall when I first came in, there was a lot of skepticism among many of your, some of your colleagues when I said that Mukutban, we can actually supplement our Mukutban production and clinker to use as far as if required all the way. Some people believe it, and some people, as I said, very skeptical or cynical. But that is precisely what we have been doing very profitably and very successfully, and that's where our strategy has played out.
The point of my elaborating on these things is there is this whole context of our geographic footprint and how we move things seamlessly between our various units. I think there is probably not a very full understanding of that. The analogy I try to look at it when I talk to our marketing colleagues, they always think that today's organization is an amoeba, changes shape depending on how the market behaves, how the opportunities arise, and that's how we also operate in our planning. When we look at it very holistically, we are a smaller player. Granted, we're a smaller player. We operate in a limited geography. But within that, this is how we try to optimize.
The point I'm getting in here is when you look at realization, et cetera, our volume mix today. As of today, in the last quarter, it stands at 50% in central India, it stands 21% in the east, 16% in the north, and west is 13%. As a poster, I don't want to take names of some of our peer groups, but if I were to, all of you can guess some of our peers who are in the same range. If I were to say one, the first set of people, they have as high as 68% or close to 70% in Eastern India. No presence in the North or West, or negligible presence in the West, and they have a southern presence.
There are other people whom we have who have, again, got 70% presence in the East and barely maybe similar to us kind of presence in the North, but in the West, they are negligible. There are, again, some other people who are in our league who have almost equal presence between north and central. Unlike us, where our central is heavier, north is less. All these factors would be influencing the results, not only in terms of what is there in this quarter, but also in terms of the base effect. I would take indulgence. I will ask for indulgence for a minute to just recall. You know last year, first quarter, east was down, north was down, whereas central was by and large holding on.
For us, although the west or Maharashtra areas, markets were not as buoyant because last year, if you recall, these were down the aftermath of the elections or after the elections, summers, everything. Although those markets were not buoyant, our presence there was much more limited because Mukutban had not been ramped up to today's level. These things have changed, and therefore this mix also is constantly changing. Our mix as in last year and our mix today is very different. This year, though we have a very small presence in the East, we have benefited also from the price increase, et cetera, which has happened in the East. Although our Durgapur unit is a very small unit, in Bengal, et cetera, the market which is there, Durgapur produces, as you know, flag cement mainly.
We have a premium brand there, Unique Plus, and that has done very well. Bihar also has been a market which has been on an upbeat, I would say upswing, have been upbeat due to all the things. But there we have a slight disadvantage because we do not have a grinding unit there as compared to many of our peers. So we have to service them from Maihar and Satna, and sometimes we are therefore subject to the vagaries of the logistics system. Taking all these things into account, how the situation has fared. Last year, again, talking of our central region, between if we were to see in our markets between center region, there has not been too much of a price change between Q1 last year to Q1 this year over there.
Even if we were to compare Q4 of last year to Q1 now, there has been a drop there, but it is a marginal drop. It is not a drop of a very significant level. I think it would be-
On the whole, there is a 2%.
About a 2% kind of a thing.
On the whole,
on the whole we have seen. We have tried to hold on to our central prices. As we will talk later in greater detail, you will see in terms of how we have further buttressed our premium portfolio over there, how we have increased our blended cement percentage there. Which we were, in the previous quarters, we were forced to sell a lot in the non-trade, which we have reduced dramatically. We have reduced our OPC dramatically, taking up our blended cement and everything together. If we were to look at it from a realization standpoint, that is how things have panned out. Where we have had a problem this quarter is we had two extended shutdowns in Mukutban and Maihar. These shutdowns were planned shutdowns, but their period got extended due to some unforeseen thing. In Mukutban, there was heavy rains in that area.
In Maihar, we faced certain problems. Those got extended. Having had a very strong quarter in Q4, we were actually short of clinker maintaining, because our emission of the plants was very high. As you know, in our core areas, our plants all operate at full capacity, full throttle. We were short of clinker. We had to purchase a lot of clinker from the market. We purchased maybe-
About 1 lakh
About 1 lakh ton of clinker from the market. 1 lakh ton we have purchased, and in fact, in the previous quarter, we were actually-
There was a net sales.
There was a net sales which was happening over in the previous quarter.
Immediately preceding.
Yeah, immediately preceding quarter is what I mean. There is a delta which has hit us in terms of the clinker cost which you see reflected. If you have seen our EBITDA per ton being lower than maybe what some of you have estimated, a large component of that comes from the clinker cost impact, which you have had, especially in our central region, which is our core market, as I said, about 20%. Equally, when we had the problem in Mukutban area, obviously, that took some jolt on the sales. In Mukutban, we could have done much better in Mukutban region, given we had already ramped up. We had a market presence over there, and some markets around it were also doing pretty well. We lost something over there.
Between these two things, I don't want to put a number, but you will be able to guess the INR 715 because all of you had your own estimates. Could have been much higher had it not been for these two negative hits.
Slightly lower than last year.
Therefore, if I were to compare the two, the largest contributor of this result is the marginally lower realization, which is a function of, as I said, the central region prices being somewhat lukewarm compared to what has happened in the north and what has happened in the east, especially. So those who have a higher presence in the north obviously have benefited in the north prices. Those who have presence in the east, we also have a small presence, so we have also benefited. But our base, because our plant is small, our impact, what we have got is not as large to compensate for this clinker loss, et cetera, which I was talking of in the central markets, where we had to buy clinker from many of our competitors nearby. Whereas, as I said, in the previous quarters, we were net sellers.
There are many cases which was swapping situations, but net, we were sellers in some markets. That has changed, and that's impacted the overall scene. These two per se should be able to explain any, as I said, any deviation which you have in your mind between our performance. But we, as a company, as we have stated in the press release, today, we think we are positioned on very firm footing, standing on four legs, very strong, and with the flexibility, which is something which we keep on highlighting everywhere. And this gives us the confidence of now moving forward with our plans as, again, there is no change. We have stated our broad plans earlier, so we feel we are able to move forward with far greater confidence, and some of it you would have seen reflected.
In terms of our longer-term plans, though, this is not related to our caution to add to anything specific, but many people have observed our acquisition of some mining rights of late, et cetera. These, as you see, are building blocks which are falling in place for delivering whatever our commitment is to our stakeholders and to the market going forward by 2027 and then by 2030. I would probably rest here and invite questions there, which would be answered not just by me, but I have with me, as usual, our Group CFO, Mr. Aditya Saraogi, our Chief Controller, Mr. Arun Agarwal. We have Rajat Prusty, our CMOP, our Chief of Manufacturing and Projects, and Mr., of course, Kalidas Pramanik, our Chief Marketing Officer. So they will all join in to respond to your questions.
But as always, we have been totally transparent, and that's how we will be with you. There's nothing to hide. We do not find anything that we need to be defensive about because that's how things are as it stands. And we are confident of the future. Thank you.
Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone phone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use answers while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment for the question queue assembled. The first question is from the line of Shravan Shah from Dolat Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you, sir. Whatever you have given, just to try to understand in terms of the profitability. Given from 1,000 odd rupees, EBITDA per ton now we came to 750 odd. Given both on the pricing front and then the cost front, how one can look at this profitability from this quarter Q2 onwards, or maybe for full year, any sense how one can look at? Both you can say the current prices versus what it was in the Q1 and from the cost perspective, any further cost reduction, how one can look at the profitability?
First of all, before I hand over to Mr. Saraogi, I would like to make two comments. INR 715, which I have already underscored. There is a certain, I would call it abnormal loss, which is on account, as I said very clearly, largely on account of our clinker shortage, and therefore purchased clinker, which you know our Maihar plant. I would not be able to tell you specifically, but all of you are very visible. You know our Maihar plant clinker is one of the cheapest clinker production which we have within the company. So is Mukutban. It's one of the cheapest sources of clinker, not only in the company, but some of them compare with the best in the industry.
As opposed to that, our own variable cost of clinker, if I had to purchase clinker from competitors, who in a normal situation, they would not be also having a huge surplus. They obviously would not give it to me at any great discount. That delta is very significant, and that delta is what has given us a hit in the results. So INR 715, since you are comparing from INR 1,000, a large component of that would be coming from this one single factor. The second factor is, which we have already said, there is, in our case, on a weighted average basis, we haven't had a spike in the prices which people in the east and people in the north have benefited from.
People in the east and south are not taking into account because south we are not present, but east and north, but when you do peer comparisons, when you do industry thing, obviously the south factor will play in the results. And some of our competitors who have a strong south presence, obviously they have benefited from that angle. We have among our people, some people who have as high as 12% of their volumes coming from the south. Others have close to 10% or more, and about 25%-26% also in the case of one particular player who also are in our league. So obviously their realizations would have been higher.
In our case, a combination of our central region being slightly depressed, but also when we look at our Mukutban, that area, the overall realization is much lower than if you were to compare with the east or north, because the prices there are at a lower price. So when you do a weighted average thing, our overall average realization comes down. So that has also had an impact. These two impacts are there. Now, if I were to talk going forward, what you will see, what we can predict, obviously, I don't see our clinker shortage situation continuing. Okay, so we are not buying any clinker just now, and I don't expect to buy any clinker going forward, either in Q2 or Q3, Q4. We are quite self-sufficient in our clinker position, so that is not going to happen.
So whatever amount you are assigning on account of the clinker thing, that you can take out straightaway. Rest in terms of prices, everything is transparent before you. The good story is, as also you know I have been commenting in your report. There is some background noise coming from some Hello?
Yes, sir. Sorry.
Can mute the mic behind. As you will see, the prices, I think overall between Q1 to Q2, except what I am reading in the south, there has not been any dramatic change. I cannot predict, I cannot do crystal ball gazing as to how it will behave in the coming months. It depends on monsoons, depends on various other factors. But I am not seeing any huge dark clouds on the pricing front. So those factors remain static. What will change for us again, while I told you about the clinker element in center, that will not be there, but we will also have Kundanganj, which I told you we had lost a little bit of volume in the last quarter. That will get corrected. We will get back to our plan of ramp up.
And we believe in the center, we will add to our volumes and market share because of some debottlenecking and other things which are happening as all of you know. So that should give us. So those will change. Some of the other factors, which is true for us, could be true for others also in terms of reduction in non-trade sales, et cetera. But there are also players we know who are in our direct competition, who are highly OPC focused as well as non-trade focused. Compared to them, the more the market recovers, we would be in a better position to reduce our non-trade component and increase our blended cement, going back to the kind of levels we were operating in the past.
Sir, a couple of data points for Q1, if you can share Kundanganj volume, lead distance, detail cost, and CapEx and net debt.
Who is speaking, please?
Sir, Shravan here from Dolat Capital.
Yes, sir.
Mukutban volume was 6.6 lakh tonnes. Consumable cost for [even fatal] was 30%. CapEx was around INR 100 crores.
Please sir.
Average 340 lead distance.
Sorry, lead distance, sir, you said 340?
342, yeah.
342. And [take care cost], you said INR 142.
146.
INR 146. And CapEx is INR 100.
Yes.
Okay. Thank you, sir.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Jyoti from NIRMAL BANG . Please go ahead.
Thank you, sir, for the opportunity.
You are not our. You do not join the call often, so that you have joined is considered our opportunity. Thank you.
No, I mean, we are a bit disappointed in terms of the numbers, but I hope we know that the second half is going to be a very good year for the cement industry by being almost like a 10% driver. The concern is that with your limited ability to cater to the market because of the capacity, do you think there is a possibility that in third quarter you may lose market share even if you are running at 90% utilization?
Yeah.
Would this cause. Yes.
Two things. One is we don't run at 90%, we run at much higher than that.
Yes, I know that. 90% +.
Okay.
Coming back to plus plus.
Okay. As I said, there'll be some more changes which are happening in the pipeline which will make it plus plus plus.
Okay.
This will not put us in the league of people who have expanded their capacity and are continuing to expand their capacities. That is something which we are very conscious of. That is why our focus is not really what others are doing. They have their strategy. They have their own fights to play in the market. We focus on our strategy, and that has been, as you know, focusing on our value share. At this juncture, we are not worried about volume share as much because obviously since we have a limited volume, so we would like to improve our value share wherever possible. There is no hiding this fact. There is nothing to be, as I said, defensive or apologetic. We have a certain constraint, but we feel that we do have opportunity to increase our value share.
In the presence of my colleagues, I must say I was personally quite happy and flattered, as I may say, that some of you who went. I saw some of the analyst reports which coming in from field visits, which have now, for the first time, I found they have acknowledged openly that our products are premium. Perfect Plus is operating at par or higher than some of our A category competitors. So that should reinforce, apart from the percentage figures, which we give you in various markets where we are operating with more than. In U.P., we have three premium brands, Perfect Plus, Ultimate, Samrat Advanced. Each has a segment. So that is how we have been doing in terms of moving up.
In this quarter, Mr. Pramanik and his team have further increased the premium component in the Mukutban region, where we increased our premium percentage from what used to be about 40% of sales to now 50% of sales. Again, I hope some of you who go for field visits will realize that our products are selling no less than the erstwhile top brands in these markets. So we are focusing on that. We are aware of the geography. We cannot compete on volume market share with people at this point in time because we have not set up new capacity. Even if we are setting up new grinding capacity, we do not have additional clinker coming in immediately. So we have to make do with what we have.
We focus on our strategy, because through that, our focus is to give the maximum returns to our shareholder, with whatever assets we have, not only stressing them, but getting the maximum return out of them. Again, to repeat what I have always emphasized, we as a company have always believed from that the assets are not just your plant assets, a major part of the asset which is not always recognized in this industry is the go-to market assets, which is your sales and distribution, the channel, plus your people and obviously your brand and marketing strength.
I agree, sir. In fact, I would rather look at Star Cement because in this situation where even Star Cement has actually increased capacity, I feel that they will also have very limited presence. Yet even if the current capacity, whatever little de-bottlenecking you do, if we maintain an EBITDA [per ton of INR 5,000], that creates a lot of value for the shareholders. That is all I want to say for the next maybe couple of months. If we continue to maintain a very healthy EBITDA per ton, that alone speaks volumes about the company's performance.
Okay.
That is all I want to say.
Thank you. You know that is our reason for existence. We will not give up EBITDA per ton for either lack of will or lack of, you might say, competence.
Can we expect that you will recover in the next three quarters and will be close to ballpark of let us say, INR 1,000 or you will be close to INR 1,100? Is there any estimate or benchmark that you have done for the company? What is the amount of kind of cost savings that you expect over this year, which you will achieve?
Jyoti, you know us for long enough to know that we do not commit numbers in terms of future EBITDA.
Yeah.
You know sometimes better than us what we are going to deliver. So I will go by your judgment rather than me making a hazarding a response. Okay? Or give me a separate call and tell me what is your estimate of EBITDA for the rest of the year. I will keep that in mind. Or target if you said for me. Thank you.
I will do that. Thank you so much, sir.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Saket Kapoor from Kapoor . Please go ahead.
Saket, you have got. You don't have tea, but you'd like to join us here and ask questions. That's not fair.
Yes, sir. No, sir. I will make it a point, seek an appointment, and will be there before the AGM, sir. Thank you, sir, firstly, for acknowledging me and namaskar to the team.
You have another unfair advantage over everybody else. You also attend the AGM. Today you should not ask too many questions.
Okay, sir. Sir, the first part is towards the employee cost. When we see it on a quarter-on-quarter basis, that has also gone up. Is it any one-off item in it, or is it the annual increment that has been set?
These are all function of fixed costs or a function of volume also numbers. When your volumes have suffered, obviously fixed cost absorption will go up. If your answer is there, then I don't think
Apart from the usual increment, yeah.
Apart from the usual increment, nothing really has happened. You have a better idea about where we are placed on the remuneration bracket. It is just a function of volumes, and you will see changes in that as we go forward.
Sir, for the CapEx, Aditya, you mentioned INR 100 crore for this quarter. What have we budgeted for the entire year?
I think in the last call we had mentioned around INR 1,100 crores.
In the ballpark of INR 1,000 we have said.
No change.
No change to what we have said last time.
The number I mean, INR 1,000 crore you mentioned?
Around INR 1,000 we have said.
You can take the last call transcript. We are one company, Saket, you will appreciate we don't change our position frequently.
Okay. Keeping that into account, what is the current net debt number, our current year maturities, and what should be closing the year in terms of the debt levels?
Our current net debt is around INR 2,300 crores. We expect to close less than INR 3,000 crores.
Under INR 3,000 crores. Last question is on the jute part, sir. In your release, you mentioned about the cost and the profitability to be best in the industry. I think so you also mentioned the impact of higher raw jute pricing. So what steps are we taking and what are we eyeing in terms of being best in class in terms of jute? What can we expect from this segment going forward, sir?
Jute, as we said, we want to be the best in class. We are, as you know, the oldest jute operating company, and this is our flagship company. What I always emphasize is that other companies, some of them may be old, but none of them have remained with the same owners for this length of time. Everybody has undergone a change. So we have a very different kind of not only a commitment but our relationship with this business. What we are seeing today, Saket, first of all, jute, there is a lot of, I wouldn't call it low-hanging fruit, but there is a lot of things on the ground which can be set aside if you were to just simply change your manufacturing practices, your efficiencies, and we have already started getting benefits of that.
We are trying to reduce our dependence on government orders, improve our non-government orders, both in domestic as well as we have said, there is a new focus we are putting on exports. But along with that, there is some modernization going on, getting more the modern looms and increasing the efficiency there. We are working on the raw jute and a whole host of things. The pricing which is going up in the market, that is not really under our control. That we can only try to do best by sharpening our buying practices, buying policies, where also we are having a much more focused commercial approach.
Right. And lastly, sir, how should the volume shape up for the balance three quarters in terms of the volume growth trajectory, if you could just articulate for us?
Nothing changes, Saket. We have been giving the annual indication. We have given you 67%, I think that's what we have maintained. We will maintain that guidance.
Okay. Thank you, sir. I will join the queue and all the best to the team, sir.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Kunal Shah from DAM Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, sir. Just a couple of things. One, on a couple of previous calls and this press release as well, you highlighted about prices in Central India being a bit depressed. Just wanted to get your thoughts on how would the surplus demand dynamics play out in our micro pockets once JP is acquired and ramped up. Do we see this pricing pressure to sort of sustain over the near to medium term?
JK or JP?
JP. Jaypee, I said. Jaiprakash.
That's still some way off. But you know, the central market operates at three or four level segments, and the growth also comes from three or four segments very clearly. There is going to be a lot of intra-led growth, which is happening, and where people who are much more dominant in the OPC segment and who go through in the non-trade route for them, there is such an area. But at the same time, if there are investments and economic growth happening in those places, we also see a clear trend towards premiumization and growth in the individual house builders as well as in the retail segment. Really, we have seen an up-trading happening in those markets. Some of them you have commented when you have visited Western MP.
But similarly, if you go to U.P., which you mentioned is you are due to go, you'll find all these markets, there is a huge up-trading which is happening there. We would like to operate largely in that cream over there. So that's why even in this quarter, if you were to look at how we have maintained our net realization, we have been able to maintain, I can't give you comparative figures between us and some of our peers in the relevant, and to use your very nice term, micro markets. Our realization, we've been able to maintain basically on the premium we command. That also gives us stickiness in the volume there and retains our market share in those particular segments.
The real tussle will happen, I think, at the bottom of the pyramid as new capacities come up because people have to sell more on non-trade, on OPC, and that's where you see. Obviously, that also impacts the retail segment, but when you're higher up on the value chain, you're somewhat insulated.
Got it. Just one related question then. In this backdrop, how do we plan to retain our trade level share? Given we have limited capacity expansion for the next two years in these home markets. Will we just keep focusing more towards the trade and backtrack from the non-trade/OPC segment? Or how to think about this?
We have said this again and again, Kunal, that trade is our bread and butter. That has always been our situation. If you go back, not just today, even earlier, we have always operated at a +85% on trade as well as on blended cement, sometimes going even higher. We are not backtracking on the non-trade. We sell non-trade only when it is necessary. Otherwise, we are quite happy to leave the non-trade for those who are interested in playing that in that ground. We choose our price segment on the ground which we want to play in with what we have. To say that for two years we will remain static is perhaps not very correct. You will see, of course, our new capacity of Maihar will take two years to come up.
While that is happening, even within our existing mix, you will see both a qualitative change and some amount of innovation, debottlenecking or some other tactical moves which will give us some edge. Obviously, we cannot be competing with somebody setting up a new plant or reactivating a new plant. But within our existing, what I keep referring to our value share, we will try to maintain that.
Kunal, just to add to what Mr. Ghose said, our share of blended cement, the proportion of blended cement this quarter was 89%. That is up from 82%, year-on-year sequentially basis. That is the kind of change we have been able to effect. Coming to the trade sale again, in the previous year same quarter it was 72%. From there, we have taken it to 78% in this quarter.
That change of 82% to 89%, I hope all of you will recognize, appreciate. It is a reflection of our brand strength, our marketing, sales, and distribution strength. This is something I like to emphasize because anybody wanting to turn the switch on and off are not able to do it so easily without sacrificing their brand premiums or increasing discounts or whatever.
Understood, sir. This was very helpful. Thanks a lot.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Sanjay Nandi from VT Capital. Please go ahead.
Hello. Hello. Good morning, sir. Thank you for the opportunity, sir. In the beginning, you just mentioned that you have bought 1 lakh ton of clinker for this quarter due to shortage of clinker. Could you please guide us what price did you buy, or what is the average price which is running on as on date for the clinker? If you can guide from outside.
We cannot give out the exact prices, Sanjay. We have given an indication, and that is something very easy for you guys to find out. A couple of calls, you will get to know what are the clinker price sales today.
Sure. Got it, sir. That's from my side, sir. Thank you so much, sir.
Thank you. Before we take the next question, we would like to remind the participants to press star and one to ask the question. The next question is from the line of Rajesh Kumar Ravi from HDFC Securities. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. In this quarter, obviously, you delivered very strong volumes gaining market share, and you also shared the regional breakup of your sales volume. We wanted to understand sequentially how were your regional sales mix in Q4 to understand this sequential decline in pricing which is visible in the numbers. Where did this decline come from?
Decline-
On a Q on Q basis.
Decline in pricing. Rajesh, there are two elements. There is a price mix and the geographic mix. Volume in terms of geography, which happens. So central region is the overall 50% of our volume is coming from center. There, the price is not having gone up. You have to compare it relative to the other regions, and that's how they have gained in the overall mix. So central region is where we have, we said about - 2% or so is the price hits which we have got. But other regions where it has gone up, which is east primarily, we have benefited, but our volumes there is pretty small. So we have not obviously got the same benefit as other people.
In Mukutban area, the loss is essentially a volume, so there has been marginal improvement in prices in Maharashtra and in the west market in the last quarter. But we have obviously not benefited totally from this because of this thing.
Sir, in Q4, what was the volume mix? As you mentioned, 50% central. In Q4, what was the central mix?
I don't have the exact numbers, but our west could have been slightly more.
Yes.
East could have been slightly lower. I think about 18% or 19% would have been east. West could have been higher at about 14% or 15%, I guess. North would have been by and large around the 16% or so. Last quarter, we have done very well in the north.
Yes, absolutely. How much has been the incentive accrued in Q1?
INR 23 crore, Rajesh.
Okay, INR 23 crore. So versus INR 40 crore in Q4, we have accrued only INR 23 crore in Q1.
41 in Q4.
41, right. Sir, this depreciation 10% decline year-on-year, what led to this fall in depreciation expense?
There is no specific reason as such, Rajesh. Maybe because there were shutdowns. The running days was less, maybe because of that there is a fall in.
I think depreciation. It has come down. I said about many assets have reached its 5% structure. That is the book.
Okay. Lastly, the progress of the clinker expansion and Kundanganj project. What milestone we have achieved so far on the major expansion, clinker line, and what is the status on the Kundanganj commissioning?
Yes, we are on track, Rajesh. There is nothing very specific to report at this point in time. Maybe when we are having the next conference call, we will share more.
Okay. Sir, out of the INR 1,100 crore which you are targeting for this year, Q1 you mentioned we have spent INR 100 crore. So INR 900 crore odd or INR 1,000 crore you will be spending in the subsequent nine months. How would they be allocated into book buckets?
We do not have that breakup. It is a mix of projects and sustainability.
Some of that which is in pipeline will get capitalized. Much has been done. Some of that will come from there, and few of them are from, Mr. Saraogi mentioned, are from sustain efforts because we have a very concrete-
Sure. Lastly, before I move on, this clinker purchase which you did, what was the additional cost which would have put on the books in Q1, which will probably be present in subsequent quarters versus your own production cost?
Rajesh, I mentioned we cannot give the exact specific figures. You have a fair idea. We have given you as much of a hint that Maihar is our lowest cost producer-
Yes.
Opposed to that, the people I buy from, their cost itself is much higher. Again, I do not have to tell you the names or that kind of thing. They obviously the situation would not give me a big discount, so it is a fairly heavy charge.
Understood, sir. Thank you. I will come back in queue.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Ashutosh Murarka from Choice Institutional Equities. Please go ahead. Mr. Ashutosh, are you there? As there is no response from the participant, we move on to the next one. The next question is from the line of Saket Kapoor from Kapoor . Please go ahead.
Saket, I thought your next question would be on September 15th at the AGM. Why are you-
Sir, for the WHRS, what is our current capacity and what are the outlines for the incremental capacity and the savings thereof, sir, if I may ask, sir?
So that is around 40 MW, and we are planning for any other modernization on these areas, it is around 10 MW more we are planning. So it will be roughly, you can say that 50 MW will be our overall capacity once we complete all the expansion which we have planned or modernization which we have planned for the existing setups.
Okay, and how much have you spent from the CapEx period?
Those are the things already. We do not have that specific detail, Saket.
Okay, sir. Sir, since you mentioned that there is a power so if you could just outline to us a crude number impact for the EBITDA per ton going down to INR 700. Had it been a normalized quarter, what would have been this number, sir?
We have said this repeatedly, Saket, in the course of this call itself. We can't talk of specific numbers on this. You are a very irritating guest. I've told this four or five times here. We gave you as much as saying that we have bought about a lakh ton of clinker. We have said that. You sign your numbers.
Thank you, sir, and all the best to the team.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll take that as our last question. I would now like to hand the conference over to the management for closing comments.
There is one more from Motilal Oswal.
Okay.
Prathamesh.
The next question is from the line of Prathamesh Dahake from Motilal Oswal. Please go ahead.
Sure. Just one small question from my side. One, on the upcoming capacities and what will be the capacity installed by the end of FY 2026 and 2027?
Yes. I think in the last conference call, you can have a look at that. There is no change in the guidance that we have.
No. Okay. Got it. That's all from my end.
Ladies and gentlemen, as there are no further questions from the participants, I now hand the conference over to the management for closing comments.
Well, thank you very much for participating in such large numbers. Hope we have been able to answer some of your queries and doubts. Rest of it, why we have not been specific, that's part of the policy, but I guess all of you have a fair idea on all of the questions there. The last question which was asked, I would only like to comment that you don't see a clinker capacity coming before 2027. A major change you will find is at Kundanganj's new line, which that is going to get commissioned and the force of the year. Thank you.
Thank you. On behalf of Birla Corporation, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.