Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. In just a moment, the performance of Rain Industries Limited during the Third quarter of 2020. Presenters today are Mr. Jagan Mohan Reddy Nellore, Vice Chairman of Rain Industries Limited, Mr. Gerard Sweeney, President of Rain Carbon Inc., and Mr. T. Srinivasa Rao, Chief Financial Officer of Rain Industries Limited. Before we begin, management would like to mention that some of the statements made in today's discussion may be forward-looking in nature, and they could be affected by certain risks and uncertainties. The company's actual results could differ materially from statements. Now, if you could turn to slide three, Mr. Jagan Mohan Reddy Nellore will provide an update on key developments within the Rain group. Thank you, and over to you, Jagan.
Thank you, Alan. Good evening, everyone. Turning to slide three of the presentation, I am pleased to report that, as anticipated, our performance during the third quarter was strong, thanks to the robust demand for our products as the global economy continues to recover from the COVID pandemic. In fact, our capacity utilization during the third quarter was the highest it has been during the past two years. Our demand-driven revenue increase more than offset the rising energy costs, supply chain disruptions, and Hurricane Ida impacts along the U.S. Gulf Coast. We finished the quarter with an EBITDA of INR 6.54 billion, which was slightly lower than the previous quarter, but a strong performance nonetheless, given the above events. While Q2 and Q3 historically are our strongest quarters, we remain cautiously optimistic looking ahead.
During the past eighteen months, we have lived in a world where anything could happen, and in this challenging environment, we not only have managed to survive, but also even made an effort to thrive in our performance. Given that reality, we do not anticipate many changes that would materially influence our performance in the near term, and that includes rising raw material and energy costs. We are watching the Chinese economy and current energy woes, especially in Europe, closely to understand the longer term prospect of a recessionary trend there. We do expect our typical annual dip as we head into the winter months due to the seasonality of some of our products. This will, as usual, impact quarter-over-quarter performance, but will be in line with past performance.
With regard to the cement business, the volumes improved in the current quarter compared to the previous quarter. In fiscal year 2022, the cement production in India is expected to achieve higher growth, driven by the continued government's strong focus on infrastructure development. As per the CRISIL rating study, the Indian cement industry is likely to add about 80 million tons of capacity by fiscal year 2024, the highest since the last 10 years, driven by increasing spending on housing and infrastructure activities. Now let's turn to slide four. In regard to the recently completed major capital projects, we saw a 5% increase in sales of our water-white resins, and we are continuing to ramp up the capacity of our hydrogenated hydrocarbon resins, or HHCR production facility, while working to further improve the plant reliability and utilization.
While there is still a learning curve, we are pleased that the technology has been running safely, and customers are pleased with the quality of our advanced resins. In the United States, we have begun commissioning of our first production facility for anhydrous carbon pellets, or ACP, in Louisiana. During the coming weeks, we expect to begin feeding the system with our organic binder, which will agglomerate with carbon fines to create calcineable ACP and move us one step closer to having a CPC alternative that is greener, we can share with anode customers for testing. The commissioning process of the US plant will provide us with valuable lessons that we can transfer to India next year when we expect to resume construction of our second ACP production facility.
Speaking of India, during the third quarter, we progressed with the heat-up of the first of our two lines of vertical shaft kilns, and in September, we were able to feed green petroleum coke, or GPC, and complete a test quantity sale of CPC from this new calciner. Initial production is validating the superior density that we expected from CPC produced using vertical shaft technology. That said, until there is better clarity on the import restrictions of GPC into India, we expect to produce only minimal quantities of CPC, mostly using the domestic GPC in this most environmentally friendly calcination facility in the world. With this business update, I will now turn over the presentation to Jerry to take you through the industry and other business updates on slide five. Gerard?
Thank you, Jagan. Good evening, everyone. It's a pleasure to discuss the industry trends during the third quarter with you.
Turning to slide five. Our Carbon segment continues to benefit from robust demand by the aluminum industry for calcined petroleum coke and coal tar pitch. Although high energy costs have prompted several European smelters to reduce or even halt production, we believe this to be a regional issue and that LME price is currently hovering around $2,600 a metric tons, supports continued smelter restarts and expansion in other region to pick up any of these reductions. On slide six, despite the positive, the positives noted above, the availability of green petroleum coke or GPC continues to be a challenge for us globally. In Europe, low refinery run rates are impacting overall production. In China, refinery utilization was at a 14-month low at the end of the quarter, which has resulted in China actually importing some GPC for calcining purposes.
The availability of GPC was further stressed by Hurricane Ida in the U.S., which impacted more than 90% of Louisiana's oil and gas production at the end of August. Although most of the refineries have resumed production, two major suppliers of anode grade GPC to us, Shell Norco and Phillips 66 Alliance, are still offline. While production at Shell Norco is expected to resume in the coming days after post-storm maintenance is completed, Phillips 66 Alliance is not expected to be back online before the second quarter of 2022. In terms of CPC production, while the hurricane had a minimal impact on our facilities, certainly far less than the damage caused last year by Hurricane Laura, we will see an impact on sales volumes of about 30,000 metric tons in future periods. Moving on to distillation side of our carbon segment.
Coal tar pitch sales remain strong, driven by robust demand from the aluminum and graphite industries, as well as from our increased internal consumption for our CARBORES and PETRORES advanced materials products. The other carbon products category continued to be largely sold out due to strong global demand for the many consumer goods that require Crude Naphthalene, Carbon Black Oil, and Creosote as raw materials or in their production process. Looking ahead, inventory levels among the industries that we serve are low, and they are expected to remain that way into early 2022. As a result, we anticipate continued strong global demand for our distillation products in the near term. Once again here, the availability of coal tar raw material remains tight globally, resulting in rising costs.
We are further challenged by the rising cost of energy in Europe as we await EU approval of the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline. In the quarter, we incurred an additional EUR 9 million as European natural gas prices increased by roughly 125%. We are already talking to customers about price increases to cover the rising energy costs and the general inflation that we are seeing worldwide. Turning to our advanced materials segment, the business continues to see healthy demand across our entire product portfolio. In terms of our engineered products, demand for CARBORES, which is used in refractory and graphite products, as well as our PETRORES specialty coating, continues to outstrip. Sales of our seasonal sealer-based products continued to be strong during the quarter as customers stock up before the winter months.
Moving on to chemical intermediates, BTX and phthalic anhydride sales volumes and pricing were in line with our expectations for the quarter. Demand for refined naphthalene continues to increase in line with higher construction activity. Our resin volumes were lower, primarily related to reduced throughput. However, hydrogenated hydrocarbon resins or HHCR volumes were the highest to date. We sold 2,400 metric tons of water-white resins in the third quarter, which was a 5% increase compared with the previous quarter. Although we are still working to master this sophisticated production technology and improve operational economics, we are pleased with the progress we are making with the production stability and reliability, as well as the earnings potential of this plant over the longer term. Looking ahead at this segment, we expect continued strong demand for our advanced materials products.
Key challenges will be overcoming the supply chain issues that everyone seems to be grappling with, our ability to source raw material given the logistical bottlenecks around the world, and passing on increased energy costs through product price increases. Aluminum demand remains strong, pushing LME prices to the $3,200 range in mid-October before retreating to around $2,600 per tons currently. It appears traders are selling off their positions to take profits and also reacting to Russia's cancellation of many of its aluminum export tariffs. Despite this recent decline in aluminum price, prices remain historically high and are incentivizing smelter restarts and expansions in several regions, with an additional 700,000 tons coming online in the Americas and another 1,000,000 tons in the Middle East and Asia. China, however, is a different story. A slowing economy and power rationing has reduced China's overall aluminum production.
That said, even with 2 million tons of capacity curtailments. China's aluminum output in 2021 is expected to be approximately 1.5 million tons higher than it was last year. Elsewhere, higher energy prices are impacting the profitability of European smelters, and several have reduced production or curtailed operations in response. Similarly, a coal shortage in India following this year's monsoon season could impact energy production, although most smelters have their own captive power supply. During our last call, aluminum was $2,500 a tons, and we had wondered if the price had peaked. Now, aluminum has reached a high of $3,200, while the current energy outlook seems somewhat bearish. There is still very high underlying demand for aluminum, and we believe that LME prices would have to fall below $2,000 a metric tons before smelters begin idling.
Until and unless that happens, the high demand for our CPC and coal tar pitch should continue. In any event, irrespective of price of aluminum, CPC or coal tar pitch, we're always managing our margins as a converter, and we are prepared to manage our activities however things play out. With that, I'll now turn the presentation to Srinivas, who'll take you through the consolidated financial performance of Rain on slide seven. Srinivas, over to you.
Thank you, Gerard. Good evening, everyone. It is a pleasure to present our financial performance during the September 2021 quarter. In the third quarter of 2021, Rain achieved consolidated net revenues of INR 37.91 billion compared to INR 25.52 billion in the third quarter of 2020, an increase of INR 12.39 billion. This resulted from an increase in revenue of INR 9.4 billion from our Carbon segment, an increase of INR 2.42 billion from our Advanced Materials segment, and an increase of INR 0.57 billion from our Cement business segment. Rain's consolidated adjusted EBITDA increased by INR 1,378 million compared to the prior year.
This resulted from an increase in the Carbon segment by INR 1,904 million, offset by a decrease in Advanced Materials segment by INR 272 million , and a decrease in the Cement segment by INR 254 million . Now turning to the next slide on Carbon segment performance. Revenues from our Carbon segment was INR 24.95 billion for the quarter ended September 30, 2021, as compared to INR 15.55 billion for the same period last year. During the current quarter, sales volume decreased marginally by 0.6%. The average blended realization increased by about 61.5%, driven by increased raw material prices and higher market quotations.
There was an appreciation of the euro against the Indian rupee by 0.4% and depreciation of the US dollar against the Indian rupee by 0.4%. Overall, due to the aforesaid reasons, revenue from Carbon segment increased by 60.4% in third quarter of current year as compared to third quarter of last year. Adjusted EBITDA of the Carbon segment increased by INR 1,904 million compared to Q3 of last year due to improved realizations coupled with cost discipline and appreciation of the euro against Indian rupee, offset by increase in energy costs. Turning to next slide on performance of advanced materials.
Revenue from our Advanced Materials segment was INR 9.54 billion for the third quarter of 2021, as compared to INR 7.12 billion for the same quarter last year. During the current quarter, there was an 8.6% increase in volumes, primarily driven by higher tar output and volume from the new hydrogenated hydrocarbon resins plant. During third quarter of 2021, the average blended realization increased by 23.4%, primarily due to changes in oil-related prices and appreciation of euro against Indian rupee. Due to the aforesaid reasons, revenue from Advanced Materials segment increased by 34% during third quarter of 2021 as compared to last year.
Adjusted EBITDA for the advanced materials segment decreased by INR 272 million due to divestment of the superplasticizers business in December 2020, coupled with incremental operating costs of the new HHCR plant in Germany and higher energy costs, mostly in Europe, offset by improved volumes and realizations, as well as the appreciation of the euro against the Indian rupee. Moving on to the next slide on cement business. During third quarter of 2021, cement revenue increased by 20.2% as compared to third quarter of 2020. The increase is primarily driven by an increase in volumes by 25.2%, offset by a decrease in realizations by 4%.
Cement EBITDA decreased by INR 254 million due to lower margins. Mostly driven by increase in distribution cost because of increase in the prices of diesel offset by increase in volumes. Moving on to the next slide on debt. We ended the quarter with approximately $1.02 billion of total debt, including approximately $22 million of working capital debt. Net debt was $883 million, and based on LTM EBIT of $334 million, we ended the quarter with a net debt to EBITDA ratio of 2.66. We are comfortable at this level as our average cost of debt around 5%, and we expect it to remain stable since the floating rate portion of our long-term debt is tied to the Euribor, which is still negative.
With the cash proceeds from the sale of Superplasticizer business in December 2020, we reduced working capital debt substantially. As you can see, our consolidated working capital debt decreased from $77 million as on December 31, 2020 to $22 million as on September 30, 2021. Apart from reduction of $4.5 million of senior secured note, senior secured notes upon buyback. With increasing prices for most of our products, there is an increase in the working capital requirement for the business. Even with a higher requirement of funds for working capital, we generated cash of INR 7,804 million, approximately $106 million during the first nine months of 2021.
As discussed earlier, our requirement of funds for expansion projects would be minimal going forward. After completion of the vertical shaft CPC plant in India and our new two ACP plants in US. and India, accordingly, we would be focusing on debt reduction once the expansion projects are completed fully. With that, I will now turn the presentation to Mr. Jagan for giving closing remarks to you all.
Thank you, Srinivas. With just two months before the current calendar year comes to an end, we are pleased with our performance thus far in 2021. We began the year with a new COVID wave threatening to undermine the economic rebound that had begun in the second half of 2020. In the second quarter, the Delta variant ravaged many parts of the world, including India, resulting in new stay-at-home orders. Despite it all, our businesses flourished, and we stand to complete 2021 with our highest sales volume, revenues, and EBITDA since 2017. Looking ahead and echoing my earlier comments, we remain cautiously optimistic about the near term, assuming that rising energy costs and the slowing Chinese economy do not throw the global economy into a tailspin.
Our positive outlook is also based on the fact that in 2022, our three major projects, the HHCR plant in Germany, the new vertical shaft calciner in India, subject to resolution of GPC import issues, and the ACP production plant in the United States should all be operating and contributing to our earnings. At the same time, we continue to aggressively manage costs, including CapEx spending, and we are working to generating new and reliable cash flows that can be applied to the company's debt. All the while, our employees around the world are focused on maintaining Rain's status as one of the safest companies in our industry. Thank you for your continued interest in Rain Industries Limited, and we look forward to next quarter's presentation. Thank you.