Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to the Q2 FY 2023 Earnings Conference Call of Tata Chemicals 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 touchtone phone. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Gavin Desa from CDR India. Thank you, and over to you.
Thank you, Yashashree. Good day, everyone, and thank you for joining us on Tata Chemicals Q2 and H1 FY 2023 Earnings Conference Call. We have with us today Mr. Ramakrishnan Mukundan, Managing Director and CEO, Mr. Zarir Langrana, Executive Director, and Mr. Nandakumar Tirumalai, the Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I would like to mention that some of the statements made in today's discussions may be forward-looking in nature and may involve risks and uncertainties. I now invite Mr. Mukundan to begin proceedings of the call. Over to you, Mukundan.
Thanks, Gavin. Good morning and welcome everyone to our quarterly earnings call. First of all, let me wish everyone a very happy New Year, and very happy festive season. Hope all of you are safe. On today's call I'm joined with my colleagues, Zarir Langrana, and Mr. Nandakumar Tirumalai. I will start the discussion with key operational highlights across business and geographies, following which, Nandu will walk you through our financial performance for the quarter. To begin with, I'd like to say that, this quarter, in terms of the volumes, especially of soda ash, was impacted by certain extended plant maintenance outages in India and U.S. Otherwise, we have continued our growth momentum during the quarter. Overall H1 we've ended on a strong note.
Also, you would have noticed during the quarter, which Nandu will talk about, a different EBITDA percentage. When you go to page number 16 of the investor presentation, it shows historically Q2 and Q3, the percentages go down, and it moves up again in Q1 and Q4. It is keeping in trend of the past, and we will leave it at that. I wanted to address these two points because I'm sure these would be at the top of the mind of all the people who joined the call. Overall, we've seen a good improvement in revenues, profitability on the back of favorable demand supply dynamics and better cost control. All our businesses across geographies have performed well in line with our plans. Let me now move on to individual business. On Soda Ash, the overall market remains tight.
There is no softening in majority of end use markets as of now. There is a talk of recession slowdown, but this has not been seen by the customers with whom we are interacting, and it continues to be in a very balanced situation to tight situation from market to market. In India, the demand was mainly driven by glass. During monsoon, the detergent market does go through a bit of softness, but on the ground the demand continues to be strong, and we are already seeing pickup during Q3 in terms of market demand to a higher level and it should move to a stronger level by Q4. Moving on to US business. Other than the issue related to the volume which I addressed already in the beginning, we also had a specific issue of exiting from ANSAC during this quarter.
This gives us a greater flexibility in terms of servicing our customers and addressing customers directly in several of the export markets. This is part of the transition to build one unified.
Go ahead.
Yeah. U.K. and Kenya benefited from improved margins and, especially on the back of new contracts. U.K., in addition, benefited from increased sales volume of higher margin products, and salt. There has also been business restructuring benefits which have flowed into U.K. and also the stability of carbon markets, crystallization of historical, derivatives and hedge positions, and one-off receipts from land transactions have given us one-time uptick in the numbers in U.K. In terms of salt business across the board, they remain stable and, the buy-back sales have also remained healthy across India and U.K. The silica business continues to be at optimum level. We are going to be scaling up capacity, as I explained, we explained in the previous calls. On nutraceuticals, we continue to gain customer acceptance, and this will gradually scale up going forward.
On Rallis, despite external development and challenges, the business delivered a good top-line growth. International business.
Sorry, sir.
Let me start right at the beginning and go through quickly in terms of the point at which the disturbance started. This is on the U.S. business. I'd already mentioned that we have an issue related to the volume during the quarter. More importantly, this is a quarter where we executed the ANSAC transition agreement, which allows us to address our customers directly and build one unified marketing network around the world to serve our customers. U.K. and Kenya benefited from improved margins for new contracts which came into effect during the quarter. U.K. also benefited from higher margin product as well as salt sales, the effect of business restructuring and the stability of U.K. carbon markets. Now, they've been more or less stable in a narrow band.
There was also crystallization of historic hedges and derivative positions and one-off receivable from land transaction. In terms of salt and bicarb sales, they remained steady. A quick word on Nutra and Silica. The nutraceutical business is holding steady, continues to track positively, and we are gonna be adding capacity of 50,000 and two transfers of 25,000 tons per annum. On nutraceutical business, we have continued to gain traction from customer approvals. Moving on to Rallis. Despite challenging external development, the business delivered a strong top-line growth, especially the international business delivered strong 67% revenue growth. Domestic business also registered good growth, and we believe that going forward the company would maintain its momentum. On CapEx, the current expansion and recovery is on track and further expansion capacity planning are underway.
To conclude, I would like to reiterate the core business continues to be strong. Business outlook for all our products remains promising, and our effort towards completing CapEx on schedule and meeting customer requirements on time is well underway. With this, let me hand over the floor to Nandakumar.
Thank you, Mukundan, and good morning to everyone, and happy Diwali to you and your family. First, let me quickly walk you through the financial performance, after which we can take the Q&A. Starting with financials, our revenue grew by 40% over Q2 of last year. The growth was broad-based with all the businesses and geographies performing well. EBITDA for the quarter was at INR 920 crores, 84% higher than last year's Q2, driven in part by operating leverage and strong demand during the quarter offsetting the rising input prices. Moving on to individual businesses in India. Revenues for the quarter was 40% higher than last year's Q2. Growth was mainly contributed by higher realizations. Current quarter volumes are reflective of the strong on-ground demand as existing segments like glass and newer segments like solar panels and lithium carbonate continue to grow.
Salt and bicarb volumes as well were steady in the quarter. Margins were stable. Coming to U.K., despite the challenging inflationary external environment, the business reported profit of INR 99 crores for the quarter. Soda Ash volumes were stable. As far as Kenya is concerned, Q2 witnessed a good and stable performance with volumes and profits both improving. Kenya is our lowest cost manufacturing unit and benefits the most from any improvement in pricing. Moving on to Nutra and Silica, as R. Mukundan mentioned earlier, Silica is operating at optimum levels, and with demand and client approvals in place, we're working towards scaling up the capacities in both Nutra and Silica. As far as Rallis is concerned, Q2 saw a good revenue growth, largely driven by the strong performance of international business. Domestic businesses as well, which was impacted by uneven monsoons, registered decent double-digit growth rates.
Margins for the quarter were impacted due to higher input cost. We're happy to inform that we repaid $92 million of our loan during the quarter. In total, we repaid $125 million in the last six months time. Our cash position in India of cash, mutual funds and bank deposits has moved to INR 1,365 crores in September. Capital spending was at INR 220 crores for the quarter, as against INR 115 crores for the previous quarter. On a consolidated basis, we had INR 1,967 crores of cash at the end of September. Net debt stood at INR 4,409 crores and consolidated CapEx of INR 304 crores in this quarter, as against INR 206 crores last year.
With that, I close my comments and hand over back to operator to open up for the questions. Thank you.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone 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 have our first question from the line of Sumant Kumar from Motilal Oswal. Please go ahead.
Yes, my first question is regarding the margin trajectory for U.K. and Kenya business. We have seen a strong margin expansion. Can you talk about how sustainable are both the region margin?
Yeah. As I mentioned, this quarter and the upcoming quarters, there will be some benefits which will be coming off certain one-time historical derivative and hedge positions, in U.K. especially. In Kenya also, I think the reflection is on the basis of the strong market price which continues to be there. While overall, the way we do see the trajectory going forward, during the current year, they will remain range-bound within a narrow band and maybe tapering down towards the later quarters as some of these hedges and will unwind. The other critical issue is that overall the margin trajectory in the other businesses will move in the reverse direction, which means they will continue to improve.
The U.K. and Kenya have had the benefit of certain levels of unwinding which has happened and they would moderate, whereas the U.S. and India would probably accelerate.
Sumant Kumar.
Yeah. Can you hear me now? Can you talk about U.S. business, the price negotiation, and export realization, any price increase in the coming quarter, or if the price has already stabilized at this level?
No, I think U.S. would certainly see by Q4 certain changes in the pricing levels because the new contracts would come in. We've not got the benefit of new contracts because some of them are annual, so they would have transition in the Q4 of this fiscal year. On the export side, we continue to see uptick, improvement in pricing. Every quarter you're gonna see improvement with a, let's say, a marked movement in the quarter four.
When we see the improvements or what range of price improvement we are, we can expect in next two quarters. You are talking about the Q3, Q4, you will see a price increase because of contract prices.
Let me again rephrase. The export volumes out of U.S. are moving every quarter. The domestic volumes and pricing would change in the Q4, which is the Q1 of the calendar year.
Okay. All the contracts will be in quarter and.
I request you to come back in the queue, Mr. Kumar.
Okay. This is the last question. All the contract is on quarterly and half yearly basis for the U.S.?
Export volumes to markets in Southeast Asia and also in Latin America more or less are moved to quarterly, whereas the domestic market within U.S. has remained more or less annual.
Okay. Just a small request. Whenever there is a plant shutdown or maintenance, we should intimate to the exchanges, so we'll get a clear picture for the earnings performance of the quarter. Thank you so much, sir.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, in order to ensure management is able to answer all queries, kindly restrict your questions to two at a time. We have our next question from the line of Vivek Rajamani from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Thank you so much for the opportunity. One clarification and one question from my side. On the clarification side, the shutdown that you mentioned for India and the U.S., that was a planned shutdown or was that an unplanned shutdown from your end?
No, it's a planned shutdown, and we had taken a larger, longer outage than normal, mainly because we wanted to have a very, very strong run by Q4 when new prices come in. That was part of the approach. Rather than take two short shutdowns, we have taken one longer one in the U.S. In India, of course, the shutdown has been longer than planned, mainly because of heavy monsoon. Nothing to do with our internal operations.
The shutdown is over and now the plants are running as per normal. Is that fair?
Yeah. They have already. These were somewhere in the middle of the quarter, so they are all back.
Got it, sir. Thank you. Coming to the question, sir, obviously we've seen a lot of volatility across the energy costs, for the past, many quarters, and you've been highlighting that as well. I think what we've seen so far is a lot of these costs have corrected quite materially. Could you just give some color in terms of how you're seeing your costs playing out, by geography over the next couple of quarters and potentially if this fall in prices also has an impact on the prices? Thank you so much.
Let me just break it down geography-wise. As far as Indian coal is concerned, this is usually indexed. As the index numbers on coal come down, the Indian energy would also fall, but there will be a bit of a time lag of at least a quarter before it starts to fall. It does move in that direction. As far as U.S. gas is concerned, that market is more or less stable. I don't think it went to a new level, but has been more or less stable. It has not spiked or it has not gone to the extent of the European gas. European gas is where I think the sharp increase has happened.
We were covered through our own understanding of certain risk mitigation positions which we take. We are well protected in terms of ensuring that we can manage the increases. There also, I think the prices are coming down and they are cooling off with the higher visibility of the gas storage across the U.K. market. What we are working to is to work with customers in terms of a certain margin number, so that they have visibility on the gas, and on that basis, they are able to price the product. This is the understanding we are reaching out with our customers in that market. As far as Kenya is concerned, it is on HFO.
Again, this HFO also has stabilized and it's indexed to crude oil. Crude oil did spike up, but I think it has now stabilized. We are seeing all around stability and a bit of tapering of the increase volumes.
Mr. Rajamani.
Um.
I request you to come back.
Got you. Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Yeah.
We have our next question from the line of Abhijit Akella from Kotak Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good afternoon, and thanks so much for taking my questions. One first on the shutdowns that were taken, just a few clarifications regarding that. If you could just share with us how much volumes were lost in both geographies, India and the U.S. because of this and, you know, if you could also share, I mean, some estimate of the lost profit because of these shutdowns.
Let me put it like this, that as far as the issue on the financials are concerned, I think they will always fall back as we move forward because the trends have to be back. This would have happened in certain quarters and at certain point in time. In terms of the volumes which we had planned to take out during the quarter, it was about broadly in the range of about 60,000 tons between both geographies put together.
Just to clarify, that was 50,000 tons you said, 50?
60. Put together India and U.S. put together, 60,000.
Okay. Yeah, the reason I was asking this is just to get a sense for what the normalized EBITDA per ton would have been in both these geographies. That was really the key question I was driving at. I mean-
Yeah. Also let me add, for example, in India, during this period, because of monsoon the consumption and other parameters also come in the way. It is not just volume driven. Certainly that's not an issue in U.S. U.S. is mostly volume driven.
Yeah.
If you go to historical numbers, you would get a trend which sort of follows every year. It's on slide 16. If you look at the slide 16, it gives you a good picture of the way the trend plays out every year.
Okay. Just to conclude, is it fair to conclude that, despite the spike in power and fuel costs that we've seen, I presume largely in the U.S. and U.K., the core EBITDA per ton would have been at least in line with what we saw last quarter in the June quarter, if not higher?
Yeah. Let me just take this. I think the input cost is one parameter, but the market price is different parameter. Margins are very much continuing to hold. Secondly, as we said, as far as the U.S. is concerned, the margin has not fully played out in that market because the contracts would move quarterly upward, and also the domestic market reset has not yet happened. That will happen only in Q1 of current year.
Fine. One last thing from my side before I get back in the queue. In the UK, you spoke about some one-time hedging benefits. If it's possible to share how much that was. Number two, just the tax rate seems rather low this quarter, so what's happening there and what should we estimate for the full year?
On tax rate, Nanda will address it. We'll come back to you on that, hedging piece. Also, there's one-time land sale transaction we've got earlier this quarter. On tax.
Tax rate, Abhijit, that is mostly in Kenya because they're making profit for the first time. We recognize the deferred tax asset in the quarter, quarterly accounts. That's what came as a one-off kind of a thing in the tax line in the accounts. See, they're making a loss every quarter, but now they made a profit and therefore we have to make a deferred tax asset considering the past losses which can be recovered going forward. That's the reason for that credit in tax line in the accounts.
Any guidance for the full year you can give, sir, for the tax rate?
Early, we can't talk about that.
Okay. Fine. I'll look forward to hearing more about the one-time benefits in the U.K. Thank you so much, and all the best.
Thank you. We have our next question from the line of S. Ramesh from Nirmal Bang. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, and thank you very much, and wish you the best for the season. If you're looking at the operations in U.S. and India and U.K. and Kenya in terms of the volume, there is shutdown about 1,000 tons which you explained as attributed to the shutdown. Going forward in terms of growth, if you remove the issues regarding cost and pricing, which geographies do you see delivering volume growth on a YoY basis, say in the second half and say in FY 2024?
In terms of volume, I think we should be clocking what we normally do in a quarter, because I think our capacity expansion is coming on stream in India only, and that too will be coming towards the beginning of the first quarter of next fiscal year. The volume will be whatever we can produce itself. Every quarter, I think as we mentioned this quarter, probably quarter two. Broadly if you say the shutdown impact on the volume would have been about 60,000. If you add that, you'll get the volume what we should clock every quarter.
The next thought is, if you're looking at the European situation, there are reports about a lot of industries, you know, reducing operating rates and shutting down, especially in glass, and there are reports of some pressure points in the area of automobiles. While in the previous we have done so far, we may not have seen any impact or slowdown. What is the sense you are getting on the ground for the next, say, two quarters this fiscal? And how do you see that shape up, in terms of the end-use segments? Say for FY 2024, and how are you know, planning your operation based on that?
As far as U.K. is concerned, we have not seen any customer sort of moving away or not committing to volume. In fact, the most customers are eager to conclude next year volumes also. U.K., as you would know, does not have flat glass supplies from us, and mostly it is containers.
Okay. In terms of the flexibility to pass on the cost increases, do you think you'll continue to enjoy that? Which is one of the key drivers for your, you know, growth, EBITDA margins and EBITDA. Because if the customers are under pressure in terms of the similar cost structure, wouldn't there be some resistance? Isn't that something which can, you know, potentially, you know, bring down margins?
Yeah. I think the point which you mentioned is that we should finally be very sensitive towards the customer's demand for these products. I think that we are keeping a very close watch. I can only relay back what we are hearing from our customers. Our customers are continuing to be producing full and buying in full and including wanting to contract for next year on that margin structure basis.
Okay. Thank you very much. Wish you all the best. I'll join with you.
Thank you. A reminder to participants to press star and one to ask a question. We have our next question from the line of Vishal Biraia from Max Life. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon. My question pertains to the global demand supply. Could you touch upon the supply sources that you are expecting over the next two years? We've seen substantial delays in capacity in, say, China and some other regions. If you could touch upon as to what is the status now and what do you see over the next few years? Thank you.
In terms of fresh capacity coming on stream, we have already always highlighted that there is about 1 million-1.5 million tons which can come in Inner Mongolia, but I think that is probably gonna serve the internal Chinese market because of a distance from port and the other issues there. That anticipated date is somewhere closer to 2026, 2027 or so. There was also announcement of capacity expansion in U.S. of about 4 million-5 million tons. That, initially, the announcement was for somewhere around 2027, 2028, but I think the date has moved to 2030 now.
Actually we are not gonna see big capacities come on stream except some debottlenecking which people may do or certain capacities getting added by players at the edges in terms of 200,000 or 300,000 tons. Overall, we don't anticipate major fresh capacity coming, at least from the announcements which we are aware of, anytime before 2026, 2027. That is in Inner Mongolia and closer to 2030 in U.S.
Okay. Just touching back on demand related to the last question that you answered. You're saying in Europe as well, you are not seeing demand curtailment as yet?
Sorry, I'm not answering for Europe, I'm answering for U.K. only because we don't sell much in Europe. There will be regional differences, which will play out. There are announcements by some manufacturers in continental Europe of glass companies who are closing. In U.K. and especially the customers we serve are mostly container glass people. They continue to have continued operations and demand and I think we'll continue to serve them.
Okay. Fair enough, sir. My last question pertains to the energy contracts in U.K. Could you touch upon as to what are the sort of energy contracts that you currently have and how are you planning to manage this in future?
We don't disclose those information to any outside world about how we hedge. That is privy to us. What I can say is we have a hedging policy in place, and we go as per that policy which is approved by the board.
As far as the customers are concerned, they have visibility on the market price, and our contract with them is on the basis of market price.
Mr. Biraia?
What is the extent of increase in energy cost that you've seen in Europe operations? Could you give some perspective as you compare the first half of last year to the first half of this year, what will be the increase in energy cost for the UK plant?
Again, difficult to say because we have a combination of our past, you know, hedge and the current market being there and what the energy cost is a mix of what is open, what is covered. Therefore, we really don't share such information in terms of the outside world. What I can reiterate is that we have a hedging policy in place, and we hedge as per that.
I think just to make a parallel to the question you asked, for example, this is in terms of, if you look at an index number of 100, the U.K. natural gas prices went as high as 6x that number for a brief period in September. But today they are settled at about 200. On an index of 100, they are at 200 today, but they did briefly go up to 6x that number.
Yeah.
That should give you the point that the market has actually cooled off. It is now twice the normal number of 100 what you would have seen, similar period, maybe prior to conflict in Europe.
Mr. Vishal Biraia, does that answer your question?
Yeah.
Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Rohit Nagraj from Centrum Broking. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks for the opportunity. First question is on India and Soda Ash pricing. I believe the last pricing that we had taken was on first of June. After that, have you taken any price increases? Given that the energy costs are coming down incrementally, is there a possibility of the pricing correcting to the extent of the energy costs coming down? Thank you.
In terms of the Indian domestic pricing, I think it is not just that the dollar number is cooling off. Also, you see, in terms of the finished product, it is indexed in USD. If you look at the rupee depreciation, that certainly also gives a cover in terms of protection of the rupee pricing in India. On the price increase, right, you have
July.
July.
June.
July was the last increase, yeah.
June.
June. Sorry.
Yeah. Whether the benefit will be passed on given that the energy prices will come down in the next fou-six months?
It is not linked like that. You know, the market price is a function of demand and supply, and the cost structures are cost structures. It is a very specific situation in the U.K. where the energy costs had spiked up to a very sharp level that for visibility with the customer, we are fundamentally moving into a margin kind of a structure in the U.K. Rest of the markets, it is fundamentally delinked. I mean, the costs are on one side and the pricing is on the other side.
Right. Got it. The second question is on China market. There's been a real estate slowdown in China. Any demand related challenges from the you know, real estate last year's real estate, and whether that soda ash volumes will come into the global market or any product change from your end? Thank you.
You see, really the only big impact we've seen, and I think this is not about the volume numbers, but it is more related to as the freight costs have come down, the landed price in some markets have corrected to about $20-odd. That is related to freight. I mean, beyond that, we've not seen any major movement.
Okay. Got it. Thanks for the answer and the clarity. Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, to ask a question, please press star and one on your phone now. We have our next question from the line of Rajesh Rai from ITI Limited. Please go ahead.
Hello.
Please go ahead, sir.
Yeah, thanks for the opportunity. Sir, my question is on, you know, the EBITDA margin or EBITDA per ton across the geographies. If I look at it, U.S., you know, which is the largest contributor to our top line, from soda ash side, there our margins are now back to, let's say slightly under $50 per ton. The margin upside which we had in this quarter was mainly from U.K., where our margins are almost at, you know, in excess of $150, let's say, dollars per ton. Same is the case with Africa, where, you know, the margins are as high as, you know, more than $225 per ton. My question was, you know, what is, let's say, a normalized level of margin that we can see?
Second, in U.S., although we have seen the prices or the realizations went up from $200 to $270, our margins are actually in the similar range, you know. Let's say $45-$50 per ton. How exactly what are the margin determinants across U.S. and India? U.K., I understood, you know, there are some aging contracts which would have benefited us, and you know, going forward, it may or may not be there. Like I think there are some one-off factor. Similarly U.S. and Africa, what are the margin determinants and what kind of outlook do we have on per ton margin?
Sir, let me just say as far as the U.S. and India are concerned, the quarters in which we take maintenance shutdown, there are also increases in fixed costs because we are spending on the maintenance costs. I think there is an element of, let's say, $3-$4 million of expenditure which is ahead of the normalized number. Then the second element is that, as far as U.S. is concerned, we did highlight that the landed number usually is gonna back up in Q3 on the back of quarterly resets in export pricing. Both domestic and export would reset, so even higher for the quarter four. You will continue to see the margins move.
As far as India is concerned, the prices are more or less stable, as well as the costs are more or less stable. Save for the additional maintenance expenditure which would happen in Q2, that would sort of give you the margin uptick as far as Q3 is concerned. That is all I wanted.
Sir, in U.K. as well as in Africa, I mean, these are extraordinary margins. Let's say $160 or even $200+. What is, you know, let's say normalized level of margin? Because, you know, you have to really calculate, you know, price level or the realizations have gone up very, very sharply in Africa. I mean, it comes to around $440+. Same is the case with U.K. Of course, U.K. is understandable because there are some specific, you know, energy costs which is across all the products. In Africa, what is the, you know, a sustainable price level and why have these prices almost doubled over a period of a year? My question was about, you know, Africa and U.K. pricing or the realizations.
In the U.K., I would say, it is understandable because of energy costs pushing through. In Africa, what's the reason that, you know, prices as well as margins are at almost supernormal levels? I mean, say EBITDA of around $235 per ton. What has been, you know, the specific factor here and what is the sustainability?
Kenya more or less, it is a function of the market prices alone, nothing else. Because it is a low-cost unit, it does end up delivering high EBITDA as the prices move up. That is really the outcome. As far as U.K. is concerned, I had already highlighted the unwinding of hedges and one-time land sale income and also certain increased numbers in terms of product portfolio shifts.
In Kenya, why have the prices gone up 4x ?
Sir, I know. I request you to come back in the queue.
Sure. If so I'll call back in. Thanks a lot, sir. Thank you.
Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Ranjit from IIFL Securities. Please go ahead.
Yes. Thank you. Thanks for the opportunity. In the opening remarks, you have mentioned that we are likely to expand the nutraceutical capacities by putting up a two-phase 25,000 each capacity. Can you provide a rough CapEx outlay for this particular thing? Whether this would be sufficient to turn this particular segment back in green.
As Keith said, this was more a comment about silica plant. Silica, we have a 10,000-ton Silica plant which is fully, more or less fully utilized. We have a very good traction from customers in terms of, especially the rubber and tire customers, for addition in green tires, where it's partly added to replace carbon black. I think we are putting up 50,000 tons in two streams of 25,000 tons each. Broadly, this CapEx will be funded through internal accrual, and our estimated number was about INR 400 odd crores. It will take about 30 months to execute, and we will start the execution plan.
It has a good return profile, including a return on capital. As far as Mithapur is concerned, we are still not operating at full utilization of the 5,000-ton plant which we have. We are still sort of going through the process of customer approval. We should probably, closer to the end of this year, be getting the plant and Nutraceutical closer to full utilization.
Okay. Thank you. That is helpful. Second thing, the production figures are kind of missing in the presentation. Just wanted to check if you can provide that for the standalone and the other operations. Soda Ash production volumes.
Generally, production and sales both are matching up all, again, all the quarters, so there's no, I mean, real meaning in production numbers. The sales numbers are more, again, more relevant because generally if you track last many quarters, both are almost similar.
They would be in the same range.
Yeah.
If the sales falls, production also would have been caused by the production shortfall, and they track pretty close to each other. Because we don't hold much of inventory in our books.
You can't stock too much in the factory of this commodity, so generally you sell what's produced.
Okay. Going forward, we won't be sharing the production volumes.
Initially, when we share, we can both track production figures, yeah.
Sure. Thank you. Lastly, the one-time impact of the land sale and the hedges cost. Just awaiting the details on that front.
What is that?
One-time impact of land.
U.K. business.
Yeah. Of what amount of land?
The amount.
The amount.
Can we come back to you?
Yeah, sure. Thank you.
Thank you. We have our next question from the line of S. Ramesh from Nirmal Bang. Please go ahead.
Thanks for the follow-up. If you look at your capital expenditure, what is the amount you expect for the second half, and what is the CapEx plan for the next two years, FY 2024 and 2025?
S. Ramesh, given those numbers in my opening remarks, I think INR 220 crores was spent in India, and INR 304 crores for Q2. I will come back to you with the Q1 number which we gave last time and give a combined number. It was there in our Q1 call. We spent INR 304 crores in Q2 of the current year in consolidated CapEx.
I'm asking about the future CapEx plan. If you can confirm the CapEx number for the second half for this year and FY 2024 and 2025, we'll be able to tie in the, you know, overall CapEx for the next two years.
Yeah. Slide number 21, Ramesh, talks about the future spend of the CapEx. Thousand fifty crores is the amount we spend between second half up to H1 2024. Next one year's time, thousand crores spent approximately.
Okay. The full impact of that will come from FY 2025?
Yeah. If you see the chart on top, it talks about capacity going up starting from this year second half and next year's first half. The benefit on volumes will come to us next year, perhaps, in second half.
Okay. Just in terms of your working capital, and the, you know, inventory days and receivable days, do you see that, you know, declining given the, you know, softness in prices and these are going to relieve some working capital? How do you see your, debt profile moving in terms of the gross and net debt in the next, two years?
Difficult to talk about next two years now, Ramesh. Broadly spoken, working capital has, I mean, has between amount of days has been steady over the last couple of quarters. As we generate more and more cash, idea is to pay down debt. Therefore we will use all the cash to deleverage.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Abhijit Akella from Kotak Securities. Please go ahead.
Thanks a lot for taking the follow-up. Just a couple of updates on the CapEx programs that have been underway. One is on the phase one CapEx at Mithapur. You know, when we announced it, there was a significant component towards energy saving investments, particularly steam turbines, et cetera. Just wanted to check if that part of the CapEx has already been commissioned, and if so, has it already started to contribute to energy savings at the site?
The turbine should get commissioned by somewhere in the month of January. That is our commissioning date. It is now going through all pre-test procedures, and it should get commissioned towards middle of January.
Would we expect a meaningful decline in power and fuel costs, sir, after that's upstream?
In fact, what it does do is, we will turn down some of the inefficient turbines and inefficient, but more importantly, it allows us to produce more immediately more vacuum salt because there's a headroom to push more salt volume in our factory.
Okay. The other one I just had was on the U.K. Of all the projects that have been going on there have been three or four of them, you know, one after the other, including, combined heat and power plant and, you know, waste to energy and then the, salt and bicarb, you know, transition, et cetera. What's the status on all of these? Are all of those done or are we still waiting for a few of these to-
Combined heat and power in the salt plant is commissioned fully. The carbon capture has been commissioned fully. The pharmaceutical grade salt project is started. The civil work has started, and I think that should get commissioned in about 18-24 months. These are the announced ones in addition to the warehouse which is in-house warehouse stocking facility which is also underway. These are the big projects which are there. The biggest one, the next big one is on the pharmaceutical grade salt which should get commissioned in the next 24 months. The rest of them have been commissioned.
The rental income that we are earning from leasing out the land, I believe for the waste to energy project, that has already started to come in.
Sir, sorry, what is it?
Income.
That, I think some income has already come.
That is-
The land thing which was stated by me in the opening remark was more to do with the warehouse, which the warehouse provider has bought the land from us and then we will be centralizing all our warehouse in U.K. in one location.
Sure. Just a last thing.
Mr. Akella, I request you to come back in the queue.
Okay. Sure.
Thank you.
Thank you.
We have our next question from the line of Resham Jain from DSP Investment Managers. Please go ahead.
Thank you. I've just one question. In the annual report you mentioned about co-creating high purity silica for battery applications. The CapEx which you highlighted a while back, is that also related to that? Or, because I actually, I couldn't hear. I can actually hear a lot of other participants but manage-
Yeah. The Silica currently the biggest end use is on rubber and tire, but the same silica, the quality silica grade, goes also for battery separators. We're already selling them and this unit will be able to service that market also.
Okay. How much expectation is there from that particular segment in terms of application? Look at overall silica, the incremental capacity which you are putting up.
We will be able to sell out full 50,000. We've got enough market traction to say that in phases when it comes 25 and 25, there are customers who are lined up for this already.
Okay. Got it, sir. Thanks.
Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Saket Kapoor from Kapoor & Company. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Namaskar, sir, and thank you for this opportunity. Firstly, in terms of this freight and forwarding charges, with the significant reduction in the container freight and ocean freight charges, what should that translate into going ahead, sir? There has been a significant change. Does it materially affect us going ahead?
The effect of that is mostly in terms of the market price. In some of the markets, they may differ $10-$20 because these markets do get serviced by them. In terms of container freight movement, the maximum use of containers is by Magadi, and they do annual volume about 300,000 tons, which is about 10% of our total sales volume. The rest of the places the delivery is by local inland freight, which is in U.K. as well as in India, where it goes by rail and road. In U.S., again, it is mostly by rail. Then they have got shipping lines which take the. They don't move in containers. They are bulk cargos.
This line item of INR 528 crore which has gone up quarter-on-quarter will remain in this vicinity only. That's the small point I was just trying to make. On the same-
Except for sailing with Magadi.
Mm-hmm.
which is our Kenyan unit
Mm-hmm.
That accounts for about 10% of our volume. It is gonna be at the edges.
Thank you. Sir, about the change in prices, sir, in dollar terms, have we seen any correction in Soda Ash prices, internationally? I missed what Zarir sir has mentioned about any price revision that we have taken, post the month of July.
No, we have not taken any further price changes after month of July. As far as the prices are stable. In some markets where freight has fallen, the landed prices sort of reduced to that extent, but the ex-factory realizations have remained constant.
Very small point, sir, which you have me.
I'm sorry to cut you, Mr. Kapoor.
Yeah, ma'am. Just, I just sum it up in if you could give me, say, 20 seconds to me again.
Yeah, please go ahead.
Yes. Yes, sir. Sir, as you have summed up that going ahead, U.S. contribution would start improving, and for Kenya and U.K., the contribution will flatten out for the coming two quarters. This understanding is correct, sir?
Yes, correct.
How is the Indian performance being, post our plant shutdown, how is India going to contribute, going ahead, say, quarter three onwards now?
They're gonna go to normal run rate. That's about it. They won't have that higher maintenance costs which they had this quarter.
Okay. Higher prices will reflect for Indian operations also? Higher realization?
The Indian prices are flat. After July, they've not moved up, so they're gonna be flat.
Okay, sir. Thank you, sir, and I'll come in the queue. Thank you.
Thank you. I now hand the conference over to the management team for closing comments. Over to you, sir.
Thank you. Just wanted to close by saying that, I think the overall, if you look at the market context for all our products, the market remains balanced or tight, and we do expect this condition to continue. We do believe that in certain pockets, especially in Europe and U.K., we need to stay extremely close to our customers given the challenging market conditions there. As of now, we have not seen any negative bias from any quarter. In fact, we've seen continued uptake and continued interest to conclude the agreements for next year. As far as our strategy is concerned, we remain focused on executing the expansion plan which was announced in India.
Also, further capacity expansions all across our operations which are competitive, which is India, U.S., and Kenya. About this the work is being done, and we'll announce and come back to you shortly. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's conference call. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.
Thank you.
Thank you.