Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to Archean Chemical Industries Limited Q3 FY 2026 earnings conference call. As a reminder, all participants' 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 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. Ranjit Pendurthi, Executive Vice Chairman of Archean Chemical Industries Limited. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone. A warm welcome to all of you joining our Q3 and nine-month FY 2026 earnings call. Thank you for taking the time to be here with us today. On this call, we are joined by Mr. Rampraveen Swaminathan, Managing Director, Mr. Natarajan Ramamurthy, CFO, Mr. Rajiv Kumar, DGM Finance, and SGA Team, our Investor Relations Advisor. First update is on the changes in the senior management team. Further, the board has appointed Mr. Rampraveen Swaminathan as the Managing Director of the company. We would like to welcome him to the Archean team. Rampraveen Swaminathan has over 28 years of experience in business leadership, operations, and strategic transformation across industrials, energy, and manufacturing sectors. He has led large-scale growth, technology-enabled transformations, and operational turnarounds across multiple geographies and industries.
He has most recently served as the MD and CEO of Mahindra Logistics Limited, where he repositioned the company as an integrated, technology-driven logistics provider and significantly scaled its revenues. Our colleague, Mr. Kannan, has decided to move out of the company due to personal reasons. I would like to place on record our thanks and appreciation for Mr. Kannan for his contributions to the company. Mr. Kannan will continue to work closely with Ram and myself over the coming months as part of the leadership transition. We are at a very exciting phase in Archean Chemicals businesses across the range of businesses we operate, and to further lead this exciting phase of growth, Ram has agreed to come on board and lead the management. I will now hand over to Ram to provide an overview of the business performance. Thank you.
Good morning, everyone, and thanks, Ranjit. I am pretty excited to be joining the team. I think as we focus on developing the organization and scaling up our businesses further in the future, I'm also looking forward to engaging with our investor community, including all of you on the call today, and taking your inputs and insights as well on this journey. I hope you all have had a chance to go through the financial results and the investor presentation, which is available on our website and the stock exchange's websites. I will provide a quick summary of the overall business performance and then hand it over to Natarajan for a quick financial summary, and then revert back for the Q&A and closing comments.
So starting with just an overall market environment, over the last we have been working operating in a mixed market environment driven by some level of uncertainties over the past three to four quarters. While there are early indications of improvement, we expect the rest of this year largely to be one of stabilization and the operating environment to normalize as we move forward. We are closely tracking developments across the proposed India, U.S., and the India-EU FTAs, which could be a platform to create new opportunities for the Indian specialty chemicals exporters over the medium to long term. The India-EU FTA and other regional trade agreements will provide long-term tailwinds for the sector, though it has limited short-term impact on our operating segments.
During this period, our focus continues to remain firmly on strengthening the fundamentals of the business, driving focused growth, accelerating operational excellence, deepening our customer partnerships, and capability building across the enterprise. Continued focus and acceleration on this will ensure that we are well positioned to benefit from these initiatives and other macroeconomic drivers, which we believe continue to remain extremely positive for our company and the sector as a whole. Coming more specifically to our own performance, as we have mentioned in prior earnings calls as well, the overall business performance in the first two quarters was challenging, with results impacted by multiple issues, including erratic monsoons, logistics disruptions in our area of operations, some technical issues in our plant operations, and lower crude prices, which kind of impacted rig activity and affected some of our end markets.
We've also seen a mixed environment on pricing, with continuing pressure on Industrial Salt prices but favorable movements on bromine. On a positive side, in the quarter we just completed, I think salt pricing was stable, and that's kind of a good trend as we look forward. Increasing bromine prices have also put pressure on margins in the Derivatives segment and demand for some of the downstream products. Despite these challenges, I think we were able to capitalize on some of the tailwinds and drive stronger momentum in the third quarter. We saw a healthy demand in the Industrial Salt segment, which showed strong volume growth year-on-year and also year-on-year growth in Derivatives, which partially offset weaknesses in other segments, most specifically the Bromine business. On a consolidated business, the company has reported 11% year-on-year revenue growth for the nine-month period.
For Q3 specifically, our revenues on the standalone operations grew by 12%, and consolidated operations grew by around 10%. I'd say growth was limited for us in as much by operational factors as by the market, and I'll kind of talk about them a little bit more as I cover segmental performance. Going to the specific segments, and I'll start out with elemental bromine. Demand for bromine continues to remain strong. During the first nine months, India was a net importer of bromine, with stable to positive trends globally as well as domestically in terms of demand. Short-term pricing trends have also remained favorable, and we continue to have a very healthy order book and are seeing positive traction with our customers. We'll also continue to see growing demand internally from our Derivatives business, which is Acume.
Overall, I think we believe we remain very well positioned from a market perspective. From a demand side, we definitely think that volume growth is likely to continue to happen. Our engagement with clients remains strong, and they continue to support us. Obviously, this year and next year, we expect bromine cap consumption from our captive operations to also drive further growth. During the quarter, as in prior quarters, I think our performance remained constrained by operational challenges and disruptions. These did continue to some of the challenges we had in Q2 did impact us in early Q3 as well. We have launched several improvement projects, which we expect will help us get back to steady state in Q4, and then we'll further try to scale up operations in the coming quarters.
For the quarter, elemental bromine contributed approximately 24% of standalone revenues, and for year-to-date, it has been approximately 29% of our consolidated revenues. On Industrial Salt, during the quarter, we sold approximately 1.1 million tons of salt, kind of reverting back to our quarterly run rate of more than a million tons. The segment contributed nearly 70% of standalone revenue, and for the nine months, our volumes are now about 3 million tons, with demand remaining robust despite the moderation in prices. Sequentially, QoQ, pricing has remained stable, and we expect that to continue in the short term. We have a strong demand visibility, and our long-term contracts with our customers continue to be in good shape. So we continue to expect to scale this business up with some seasonal uptick in Q4 and continuing kind of expansion of operations as well.
On SOP, which I think just continues to extend from what we had covered in the last quarter, our pilot stage trials have been completed successfully. During the quarter, we have worked towards progressing from pilot to plant-scale trials. The site is ready, and we are on the verge of commencing plant-scale trials and expect meaningful contributions from this business in FY 2027, especially the latter half of FY 2027. As you have stated repeatedly, we continue to believe and have strong conviction that SOP has significant potential for the business in the long term. Our challenges in that business have been obviously around changes in feedstock given brine quality, and those are the technical changes we are making in the plant operating system now, which should, when successful, kind of position us well to start scaling up operations again.
On Bromine Derivatives, which is essentially in Acume, our operations are up and running. We're currently at around 30%-40% utilization. We have around 40 reactors, and month-on-month, they change, but generally around 30%-40% utilization. Global uncertainties and obviously lower crude oil prices have impacted rig activities, which has further impacted the oilfield chemical market demand. On the supply side, price increases on bromine have also increased cost pressures. However, we are engaging with clients, availing certifications and approval, right, and expect the volumes to start scaling up. We continue to focus really on product development. We have around 15 new products in pipeline, which are at different stages in terms of customer trials and completion. And this should help us, we believe, grow to around 50%-60% utilization in the coming quarters.
We have, in the past, mentioned about the flame-retardant bromine project, so a quick update on that. We are at the project evaluation phase there, and we'll provide a more detailed update on that as we make progress. The current market environment is kind of mixed there, so we are trying to evaluate the feasibility of that business and how quickly we can scale volumes up. Now, moving on to our strategic initiatives, especially in what I call the advanced materials space broadly. On the semiconductor side, during the quarter, our Semicon business initiative through SiCSem continued to make strong progress. As you're all already aware, SiCSem is among the 10 projects approved by the Union Cabinet under the Indian Semiconductor Mission.
The finalization of the fiscal support agreement with the Indian Semiconductor Mission is currently underway and is expected to be completed soon, which will then give further finalization to the overall funding framework. Execution on the ground has already begun. The 25-acre site in Infovalley, Bhubaneswar, has been allotted, and we held a groundbreaking ceremony on that at the site in November 2025. Land leveling is complete, and we are right now going through topographical survey and soil testing right before we start any construction activity. Along the same time, we're also kind of investing in developing our go-to-market strategy, finalizing our supply partners, including for fab design, EPC, and project execution. And overall, we believe the project is well positioned. From a timing perspective, we are on target right now in terms of our internal schedules.
From a medium to long-term perspective, we continue to believe that this is very well positioned to not just enhance our own business but also, I think, contribute meaningfully to India's emerging compound semiconductor ecosystem, all right? We'll continue to share this is a long-gestation project, so we'll continue to share updates with all of you as we move to the next phase of execution. Our energy storage business, which is the other strategic initiative we have, as you know, we have invested in Offgrid Energy Labs, a zinc bromide battery innovator with a robust IP portfolio of over 50 patents and more across cathodes, anodes, and separators. In May 2025, just to remind everyone, we successfully acquired 18.14%, with the remaining commitment expected to be completed over the coming period.
The company, as an Offgrid Energy Labs, plans to set up a 10 MWh demo manufacturing facility in the U.K. The work has already started and is progressing well with the R&D for the next generation stationary energy solutions kind of underway. Again, this is a project we'll continue to keep you all updated on progress in the coming quarters. Overall, if I kind of looked at summarizing at a summary level, our business fundamentals remain strong and robust. Our Marine Chemicals portfolio is well positioned with high product quality, strong customer acceptance, and continued focus on strengthening our cost position. Year-to-date, we have had some challenges operationally due to some external factors, and operational factors really in the Bromine business, and of course, some external issues around pricing on the Industrial Salt side. But we remain focused on recovering this in coming quarters.
Our long-term investments in advanced materials are on track, continue to position as well for the long term. So I'll now hand over to Natarajan to provide a more detailed financial summary for the quarter and for the year-to-date, and then I'll come back for the Q&A and the wrap. Natarajan?
Yes. Thank you, and a very good morning to all the participants on the call. We are pleased to report a notable performance for the quarter gone by. To give you a summary of Q3 and nine months FY 2026 on a standalone basis, let's start with Q3 FY 2026 performance. Total income for Q3 FY 2026 stood at INR 2,608.1 million, 2.4% increase on a year-on-year basis. We have shared the revenue and the business mix in the investor presentation for better understanding. Our business mix is as follows in Q3: Bromine contributed 23% of the total standalone revenue, and Industrial Salt contributed around 77%. Sale volume of the business are as follows: volume sales of Bromine for Q3 FY 2026 stood at 2,403 tons. Volume sales of Industrial Salt Q3 FY 2026 stood at 1.1 million tons. EBITDA for the company stood at INR 698.6 million in Q3 FY 2026, 25% decline on a year-on-year basis.
EBITDA margin stood at nearly 27% for the quarter. Increase in expenses was largely due to increase in logistics costs, new employees, and other overhead costs from the new units. Net profit of Q3 FY 2026 stood at around INR 343 million. Coming to nine-month performance, total revenue for nine months stood at INR 7,840 million, 7.4% growth on a year-on-year basis. EBITDA stood at INR 2,416 million, 10.8% dip on a year-on-year basis. Net profit is INR 1,246 million, 1.6% decline on a year-on-year basis. On a consolidated basis, Q3 and nine-month performance stood as total revenue Q3 FY 2026 stood at INR 2,615 million, Bromine Derivatives INR 142.1 million, EBITDA for the company INR 613.5 million, and net profit INR 240 million. Nine-month performance, total revenue INR 8,016.7 million, EBITDA INR 2,166 million, and net profit INR 931 million. With this, we conclude this speech and open the floor for Q&A.
Thank you, Natarajan. We will now open for Q&A and request the moderator to kind of facilitate the session.
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 touch-tone 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, and you are also requested to limit your questions to two per participant. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Sanjesh Jain from ICICI Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good morning, Sanjesh. [crosstalk] . Good afternoon, Sanjesh.
Good afternoon. Good afternoon. So quickly, I got a couple of questions, but before that, just data-keeping questions. Natarajan sir, can you repeat the revenue for Acume's for Q3, SOP, and volumes for both?
Yeah. Sure, sure. One second. Q3 only, right?
Yeah, Q3 only.
Q3 total quantity is 799 metric tons, and value is INR 137 million.
One thirty-seven million.
For nine- months ended?
No, for SOP. No, no. 9 months we got.
Okay. SOP you want?
Yeah. SOP, volume, and revenue.
Yeah. SOP, Q3 is one second. Okay. Q3 is 71 metric tons, okay, and value is—
Seven fifty-one? Okay.
No, no. 71. 71. 71.
[crosstalk] . Okay. Okay. Okay. And value is?
Value is INR 32 lakh.
Okay. So now, coming to the questions, you mentioned in the initial remark that you are seeing pressure on the Bromine Derivatives, but on the other side, if I look at the bromine prices, they have really shot up. Now, both really doesn't add up. If there is a pressure on the derivatives, how can the elemental prices go up? Or if there is some supply constraint which is driving these bromine prices, how should we read this commentary together?
No, so I think my comment was that we obviously the increase in bromine prices obviously has been cost pressures on our Bromine Derivatives business. And what I mean by Sanjesh, obviously, is that given the specific products we are making right now and the way that the contracts are, not all of the cost increase is something we're able to pass through to our clients, right? So you're seeing this trend where obviously bromine prices are up. I mean, very favorable for us if our volumes had been better on the Bromine side, but that increase is also putting cost pressures on the elemental bromine business. And that's why you have seen in the Acume side, we've had to enhance our product development efforts towards new products.
Also, we've seen some downtick in our revenues because we've had to kind of adjust volumes on some of the products where we had a higher cost impact.
No, I got it. There are only three products which significantly take away the bromine volumes globally. Now, what we are telling is that the derivatives pressure is specific to the Archean and not to the industry, right? Then.
Yeah. It's specific more to our products. That's why I made that comment, that current product portfolio has a longer tail on that, which is why I mentioned we are in the process of accelerating the 15 products we have in the pipeline.
Very clear. Second, on the Bromine, last quarter, we mentioned that we have a 10,000 metric tons of backlog. The production is really not keeping up. Just wanted to understand how much of this backlog is with the lower pricing, which may hurt us because we are not fulfilling that and probably may have to fulfill them in the future. And number two, that means the realization we will be in the catching-up game. And number two, what really is happening on the production side? Can you help us understand when we say the technical problem, what we really mean by technical problem?
All right. So let me answer the first question first. I think we so we have much of the order intake we had is roughly at the same price. It's very much still there, Sanjesh. So I think the 10,000- ton or 9,500- ton backlog we had at the end of last quarter, we obviously shipped approximately 2,500 tons of that. So we have still around 6,500 tons in backlog. We've not seen a significant amount of cancellations there. We are obviously reviewing by contract with our individual customers on what we can do to reprice those contracts. If I had to give a simple headline message, I think there will be some carry over the next one and a half quarters or so, but we hope to then reset to market pricing over the next couple of quarters, right? So there'll be some carry in it.
I don't have a more specific answer at this stage. Happy to kind of revert back to you a little bit more detail there, but that's just a headline view. On the operational side, I think what's really happened is, and I think Ranjit and Kannan may have spoken about this a little bit last quarter's call, we've obviously had a fair amount of weather changes over the last first six months. And flooding and kind of weather changes have meant that the brine quality, which then kind of drives the feedstock quality, has changed in terms of composition. That has meant that we've had to make some changes in our brine field operations to kind of ensure that we are enhancing the feedstock quality.
We've also had to make some changes or improvements in the plant itself to be able to kind of manage a wider range of brine or input feedstock. So we had a trailing effect of that. Essentially, throughput came down because of that last quarter as well. And we had a trailing effect of that, Sanjesh, in the first half of this third quarter as well. We then obviously launched some improvement projects. That also resulted in some time off because we had to kind of make changes in the system. We ended the quarter getting back on a positive trend. And that's why I mentioned that I believe that in the coming quarters, earlier rather than later, we should be able to get to a steady state. Steady state, to remind you, in my mind, is kind of what last we did last year.
Last couple of years, we made it the 18,000-ton kind of level. We want to get back there. Then obviously, our goal is still in the near to medium term to try and get to the 25,000-ton run rate.
Got it. Got it. So we had a capacity of 42. Why are we targeting only 25? There's a disconnect between the capacity we have and the production we are targeting.
Sanjesh, Rajiv here. I'll step in.
Hi. Hi, Rajiv.
Hi, Sanjesh. So see, as we have previously mentioned in our call, the capacity expansion will actually primarily happen between 2025 and 2042 in line with the capacity expansion in the Derivatives business.
Okay.
Yeah.
As we put up more derivatives, only then we will be able to extract more bromine, or we will be extracting more bromine, probably.
I think obviously, yeah, that's a headline. That's overall.
Got it. No, but just want to understand on the Derivatives side, there's a sharp drop in the volume. How do we plan to ramp it up? And I think we are lagging significantly in terms of what we thought we could do. I know the market conditions and stuff, but can you help us understand how should we look at FY 2027 for us?
Yeah. So I think just to answer the question more clearly, see, we are right around 30%-40% utilization. So first, the plant is first target for us, Sanjesh, is to kind of get the utilization up. The second thing I think is that the product mix we have we have essentially three to five products which are running most of the volume. Those are things which we would like to kind of move away from or change the mix from away from that. So that's the two big focuses right now, is to get the right product mix, get the right level of penetration with customers. The potential is there. Even though markets are a bit soft, I think the potential is there.
And we started the quarter with around five to six products in the pipeline. Q3, and as we speak right now, we've actually expanded products to around 15 products which are now in trials and going through kind of customer acceptance, validation, and so on. So that's kind of the focus, is to kind of expand the product portfolio and repivot the portfolio, let me say, towards better-yield kind of products for us. What does this translate into math? I think for 2026, 2027, as I mentioned earlier, we are trying to scale it up to around 60%-70% utilization at a plant level. And of course, that'll move day-to-day or week-to-week based on which reactors we operate. But just from an overall throughput perspective, to get to that 60%-70% level, that's a product portfolio we have been working on. And I think you will see that step up QoQ.
It's not a one-time switch, but over the next couple of quarters, you should start seeing that scaling up.
No, that's great. Thanks. Thanks for answering all those questions so patiently and disciplined for the coming quarters.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Vinay Nadkarni from Hathway Investments Private Limited . Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good afternoon. I have just one basic fundamental question. When I'm looking at your company for the last, what, seven, eight quarters now, whether it is Oren Hydrocarbons, whether it is your bromine derivatives, whether it is bromine also, or SOP, everything gets delayed as the quarters go by. So every time there is some kind of a delay that is happening. Is there any management bandwidth issue that you have which is impacting this?
So Vinay, firstly, every company has challenges around management bandwidth, scale-up operations. So I would be cautious, but that would be an oversimplification of the issue. I think there are very specific challenges we've had, right? So obviously, bromine, we were at a good run rate prior. I think we were at 17,000 tons, 18,000 tons. We are looking at a run rate of around 25. And then, as you mentioned earlier, to do kind of a minor brownfield expansion to take it around the target of 40,000 tons. We've had the setbacks which we talked about earlier. And I think we have good bandwidth on the ground, which is why we've been able to make these changes within one quarter, right? It's a continuous process manufacturing plant.
We've been able to make changes, in fact, without any major shutdowns, right, because we have fairly good bandwidth on the ground. Industrial Salt volumes are growing, right? Therefore, we are so in that part of the business, I think there are headwinds, but there's no challenge around bandwidth, right? The Idealis investment was always projected saying that it will take us multiple quarters. As we had got the assets out of NCLT, we had to make stepwise changes. There are issues in terms of local ecosystem challenges and so on. The good thing and so it's not been that we don't have bandwidth. We don't have team working on it. It's just, I think, the nature of the program which we had.
We always, I think, bore caution to the fact that given it's an NCLT asset buyout, it will be a staged recovery process and not an overnight kind of scale-up. Three plants are now operational, right? We have to take these products actually have a long customer certification cycle. It's not a commodity product like salt, right? And therefore, it does require a fair amount of customer approvals. So three plants are up and running now. We are in the process of scaling it up. On the Acume side, on the Derivative side, yes. I think that's a piece which has been I think we are to execute that a little bit better. And those are changes which we are making, right? And a lot of that is around product development. We've accelerated that over the last quarter.
And we are continuing to focus on accelerating that this quarter even further, right? So that's a piece where backend is really solid, right? Operationally, the plant's in great shape. It's very good. It's got great operating metrics. But the demand side has been scale-up has been weak because we have had to kind of rework our go-to-market now product portfolio. And I take your point, and that's what we are working on right now.
Yeah. My observation was also on SOP because that is one high-margin product that we have which has got a good demand also. But somehow, quarter-after-quarter, we see delays getting a little too frustrating now.
A s you know, our conviction on SOP—Vinay, sorry. Vinay, our conviction on SOP still remains extremely strong, right? We have maintained that now for several years, right? It's a complex technical issue. It's not the lack of our resources committed to it or the capability of those resources. We have strong resources, partnerships globally. It is a complex technical problem which takes time to solve. I think we are now getting close to a point where we think we have, I would say, a more enduring fix. We have been trying to do many short-term fixes which obviously have not given the yield we had expected. We are now at a point where I think we have a more enduring fix, but it'll take us a few more quarters to get there.
Thanks a lot for that answer. Looking forward to a brilliant FY 2027.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Rohit Nagraj from 360 ONE Capital. Please go ahead.
Thanks for the opportunity. Good afternoon. So first question is in terms of the contracted volumes for bromine. So if you can just help us understand how much is maybe a medium-long-term contract and how much is spot. I mean, the perspective that we want to hear is whenever there is change in bromine prices, whether we'll get that advantage or not. Because I think last year also, it happened sometimes in the month of April, May, bromine prices went up, but it was not reflected in our performance. In the last couple of months now, bromine prices have gone up beyond $5,000. So when we will be able to see the tangible benefit in the financials so a broader perspective in terms of contracted spot will also help us.
So I think so Vinay, and I assume again the earlier part of the call as well, Vinay, answered part of this in some ways. I think we have around 6,500 tons of, as we say, of contracted backlog, right? But that's not backlog which is only for one quarter or two quarters. It's kind of spread over a period of time. And we have a mix of both spot and contract prices. So we have obviously the balance of both long-term contracts and short-term contracts in the mix. I think the challenge for us is about the production side of it. Obviously, when the production side has been trailing, we have not had enough bromine coming out to actually balance both those customer sets. And we do have to make strategic calls given our customer relationships.
That's probably the reason why you may not have seen some of this impact at least this year. I can't talk about last year, but at least this year's perspective. I think, as I mentioned, we will probably see a trailing impact on some of these contracts for a couple of quarters. The exact impact of it will also be a function of how much we're able to get through into our system, right, in terms of production. So at this stage, I mean, that's probably the best input I can give you is that I do think we will see that the contracts will have an impact over the next couple of quarters. They should probably the longer-term contracts should probably represent probably 50%-60% of our volume and not more than that, okay?
So I mean, just a clarification on this. Once these long-term commitments are over, what could be the optimal mix in terms of maybe medium-long-term contracts and spot? Just to get an advantage of the spot market as and when it arises. Otherwise, yes.
Let me come back to you specifically on that. I don't have a perfect answer on that right now, right? We're still kind of reviewing some of this as well. But I will try and reach out. Somebody from our team will reach out to you separately outside this call and provide you some information.
Sure, sir. Thank you. Thank you. So second question is in terms of next year, given the constraints that we have on bromine, is there a fair chance of reaching at least the 18,000 tons of production which includes both the element sale as well as for our captive?
Simple answer, yes, right?
Okay. Perfect. Perfect. That's helpful. One more question I just want to squeeze in. Oren, we had indicated that I mean, there have been delays in terms of the revenues. Next year, what is the reasonable number that we can put INR 100 crore, INR 150 crore based on the current understanding of where we are?
See, as a matter of rule, we don't give guidance, right? But what I would say, I think, is on the Acume side, I was very specific. We do expect we'll get to a 50%-60% capacity utilization there. On the Oren side, on the Idealis side, I think each as I said, we are still in the process of scaling up plants and operations. So at this stage, I'd probably defer answering that question. But if you can pick the thread on it next quarter, I'll probably be able to give you better insight on it.
Fair enough, sir. Thanks a lot for answering all the questions and all the best, sir. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Aditya Khetan from SMIFS Institutional Equities. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you, sir, for the opportunity. Just a couple of questions. So on the Bromine side today, so climate change is quite visible, as you mentioned, like there was some bad weather impact. And it seems nowadays even a smaller wind comes, it takes away our volumes. So sir, just putting things in perspective, how many months or days of lost volumes we can build? And what is the sustainability of the numbers which you have given of 25 kiloton? How should one put faith in the numbers like this bad weather impact wouldn't be there in the coming fiscal, so one to two years? And how should this play out in the longer run?
No, I think the weather so the weather impact is two things. Obviously, in some extreme cases, it can result in a total shutdown of operations. But the larger set of issues we've had is more about adapting our systems, right, to it. When these changes happen, they obviously change the flow of each stock and the chemical capabilities of the system. I'm reasonably confident that I think we should we have solves on most of this implemented now. There is clearly a roadmap to get to that 17,000 tons-18,000 tons number. As I mentioned to the earlier to Vinay earlier that we are a simple answer, we will be north of 18,000 tons next year, right? Now, the goal is to get to a run rate of between 18,000 tons and 25,000 tons, at which stage we obviously have to do some expansion work, right?
We're hoping that the Bromine Derivatives business will also start scaling up meaningfully at that stage so we can actually make that step up beyond 25,000 tons, right? But I don't think this is a flash-in-the-pan thing that whenever it happens, we just end up going sideways. There are technical things which one has to do to solve the problem, and that's what we have taken care of now. We should start seeing that coming through in our results as well.
Got it. Sir, onto the Bromine Derivatives side, we have clearly witnessed the business has not been able to ramp up quite steep. Just, sir, want to know like you mentioned earlier also, there is the demand is not that great today. So is that also related to the higher bromine prices because the feedstock prices are higher? Consequently, the CBF and PT synthesis prices are also higher, which is where you might not have been able to pass on? Or the demand itself in the global world, that is muted today?
So let me just state this overall, just as several of you might be interested. I think medium- to long-term demand on the Derivative side is pretty good, right? Short-term demand across categories is also fairly stable and improving. Our challenge has been in scaling up the business has been in some of the specific products we make and driving penetration with the end-user accounts, right? So obviously, there is supply-side pressure which we have to either optimize through our own cost of operations or in different customer contracts, pass it through our clients as well, right? So this is not an enduring this is not that kind of a challenge. What we have to and the steps we have taken, obviously, is to kind of refocus a lot on getting the right product portfolio out and increasing the speed at which we're getting products out, right?
So that's been the big pivot we have to accelerate in the business. I think if we get the product expansion out and accelerate the customer acceptance cycle, we should be able to get there. So obviously, we are, I think, probably 12-18 months behind. I don't have an exact number because I'm still trying to figure out some things. But I would say that whatever duration we are behind, a lot of this has just been how quickly we execute here. And that's what I kind of commented earlier on that to the person who asked me, "Do you have a bandwidth issue?" I think this is one area where we could have executed a little bit better. But we have put the fixes in now. We are putting some more fixes. So we should be able to get this back on stream in FY 2027.
I won't say that's going to happen in Q1 of FY 2027, but from an underrated perspective, through the year, we should be able to get to that 60%-ish kind of capacity utilization.
Got it, sir. So just one last question. Sir, considering the recent geopolitical tensions between Israel and Iran, is there any, so while talking to customers, are they hinting about diversifying from Israel to India volumes? Because Israel Chemicals, which is the biggest player in Israel, is there any sort of if these things turn out, there could be some short-term supply chain issues, supply issues. And customers are looking more towards India, towards other players. Is there any sort of things you're talking in? And secondly, sir, if you can also highlight the global supply, is there any new player which is entering or existing players looking to expand the supply in China and in other countries? That would be helpful.
Yeah. I think some supply will come up globally probably next year or so with expansion probably in Australia, right, somewhere towards 2027 or so, right? But again, these are organic changes which do continue to happen. From a demand perspective, I think our focus markets have actually been around Asia, South Asia, and East Asia. And we have not heard any significant repivot. Demand still is stable and growing, right? And therefore, I don't think anything to be concerned about in that sense. No immediate upside as well because of the way global supply chains work in our kind of focused markets. We don't see anything dramatically changing. And I think we've heard from our customers at least.
Got it, sir. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Dhruv Muchhal from HDFC AMC. Please go ahead.
Yes, sir. Thank you so much. Sir, one of the challenges in the bromine production, I believe, as you have mentioned in some of the previous calls, was also as you're focusing somewhat on the SOP. So as you're confident of the recovery in Bromine from next year, also, can you highlight how the SOP trajectory could be? I understand it's still on the plant trial stage, probably starting soon, but some early trends, if you can share something on that.
I think our pilot trials—these are fairly independent programs, as you know, obviously. The pilot trials have been successful. The chemistry works. We have been able to ensure that we are getting good yields out. From a quality perspective, we are good. We have the plant-scale trials somewhere in this quarter or early next quarter. We have kind of got the plant ready. That's one of the reasons why probably volume has been lower in Q3 because we've been getting plant ready. But we should. I think it's hard for me right now to give a specific number if that's what you're looking for, okay? I think once we finish the plant trials, probably in April or May, we will be in a better sense to see what kind of ramp-up will be required.
We also have to because we'll have to understand what kind of modifications we have to do at a plant level. We have a preliminary sense, obviously, of what has to be done. But we'll be able to confirm that only after we do the plant trials. And that's when we'll be able to give a far clearer view on what the projected kind of throughput will be. You already know the capacity numbers. So that's been out there in the public world for a long time. So the goalpost is known to everyone, right? We just have to come back to the more specific ramp-up plan, which we'll share with you as the plant trials get completed.
Sure. Thank you. And so the second question was.
I just want to highlight that, obviously, if we look at an FY 2027 perspective, there will be plant modifications, etc., to be done. Once the plant trials are successful, we'll have to make some modifications in the plant. So hard right now to say even what the FY 2027 impact will be. A couple of you have asked that question. So I just want to kind of recalibrate, clarify that.
But just to confirm, probably clarify, these plant trials are going to have any implication on the bromine production because now that can happen?
No, no, no. Nothing. They're independent. They're independent value chains. There's a lot of shared infrastructure on utilities and so on in the business, right, and on the feedstock side. But operationally, they are very different.
Got it. And so the second question was on the flame-retardant project. Now, I think if I could have missed, but the project earlier, you had mentioned about 12-18 months for the project. I think in the commentary, you mentioned earlier that the project you're relooking at the project now; this was to be a downstream project which could have taken some of the virgin bromine. Does it have any implication in terms of how you ramp up your SOP assuming this project is on hold for now? Does it have any implications on how you ramp up your elemental bromine now?
No, I think what I mentioned was that we are evaluating the project feasibility and not the viability, right? So we are going to continue to work on flame-retardant. It's only that we are working through the project details and working on that. It has no direct impact on our ramp-up plan, right? So the 60%-70% growth, the utilization I had talked about, right, that is something which we hope to achieve in either case.
So the near-term happens. For example, FY 2027 happens. FY 2028 also happens because of your other downstream bromines. But assuming this project, I'm still not very clear whether is this project on hold or not on hold.
No, it's not on hold. It's not on hold. It's just that we are working on it in a fair amount of detail, trying to ensure that we launch the product properly and that we have a clear ramp-up plan which we deliver on, right? So that's so as I said, and that's kind of what we are working on in a very detailed project plan. I talked about what we did in SiCSem, SiCSem at a high level. We talked about SiCSem in more detail, but very similar approach here as well. We are trying to do the project planning in a lot more detail. We ensure that we are fail-safing execution, looking at margins, returns, product mix, etc., a lot more carefully. And that's why the execution is taking a longer period of time. But it's very much on. It's not on the back burner.
It's not off the burner. It's very much on the burner.
Okay. So because I was just looking at 2Q conference details, you had earlier mentioned it can come online in 12-18 months. So assuming by end of in 2Q, so end of FY 2027-ish somewhere, does that timeline still remains, or is that changed?
Yes, yes. It still remains. Still remains.
Oh, okay. Got it. Okay. So basically, you're just reconfiguring the product mix and that way. Okay. Okay.
That is the update, I guess, is that we are working through the project details. That's all it is. We give you an update because we mentioned in Q2, that's why we gave an update this quarter.
Got it. Perfect. Great. Thank you so much and all the best. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Rushabh from RBSA Investment Managers, LLP. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Thank you for the opportunity. Just to get a more sense on the weather impact that we have over the years. So you mentioned that we've done some fixes currently. I just want to understand next time, the bad weather itself, does the impact remain the same as earlier, or now we are better off now?
Bad weather is a very broad statement. But as I said, I think what does bad weather do to us? I'm just going to repeat what I said earlier. Bad weather can either have an impact on just operating environment, or it can just have an impact on the brine fields and overflooding, etc., can change that. I think technically, we'll be in a strong position to manage those kind of challenges going forward, right? I mean, if you have a cyclone or something which requires you to kind of temporarily take safety measures on operations, that's something which I don't think anything which any fix we could have done is going to protect against that.
But on the feedstock, the brine fields, etc., and what higher levels of rain or floods, etc., do to that, those are things which I think we've put in the fixes to try and get strong process control and be able to manage that range of width.
Okay. Given that.
Is that something we've done? Sorry? Go ahead.
Yeah. Given that we have so much on our plate right now, and I just want to understand on the senior management and the mid-senior management bandwidth, so are we done with hiring? What is the progress on that? So that next time, as the industry techniques appear, we don't falter again. So I just want to understand in that sense. Is the team up and running?
I think organizationally and let me give you a perspective of someone who is fairly new to the job, right? So I obviously have a very sharp sense on this. I think organizationally, we are well set up, right? And I'm not worried about it as well. We have to add some capacity as the business grows. But I would say that from a capability perspective, there are many pockets in the company where the capability is very deep. Even some of the changes we made on the bromine operations, as I said, we've done it without any shutdowns. And we've done it within six to eight weeks in some of the changes we have made. So those are a reflection of the depth we have technically and on the execution side. So I wouldn't be worried about that in that sense.
I think we've got plans around it, and we are executing those plans.
Just the last question to Mr. Ranjit. Post the designation change, why do we devote your time more now? If we just share your thought process now and now.
So I think I'm happy that the management depth is increasing. I think that's one of our tasks as promoters to ensure that there are people who are right and fit for the job to be able to take it up and then move the company at the speed and execution level that we want. So I think that's the first change that we have consciously made. With your specific question regarding my own role, I think it will remain strategic. I think that's where possibly most of my time will go. We do have the new initiatives going on.
So while I work with Ram on the existing business and making sure that I'm an enabler for him and guiding and helping him make these things happen in the existing base businesses, I think my focus will also possibly more shift towards the strategic initiatives and making the semiconductor business happen on the ground, team building there, and working on that part of the business as well.
That sounds great, sir. Thank you, sir. Wish you all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Rikin Shah from The Boring AMC. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you for taking my question. I just wanted to ask on the Oren side. So in Q4, FY 2025, we have guided for INR 150 crore-INR 160 crore revenue in FY 2026. In Q2, FY 2026, we have guided that nothing will meaningfully come this year, and we've shifted the guidance to FY 2027. So we had acquired this asset through NCLT. It was well known to have complexities. So why was the initial diligence so far off regarding regulatory timelines and other challenges? And now that you are guiding numbers to come in FY 2027, what is giving you reasonable confidence that this will happen?
I think the first one is from a diligence perspective, we did a diligence in operating assets, the products which we can make from there. Obviously, what would be a reasonable operational time to get the assets back? As always, coming out of an NCLT process, there are several other issues we have to deal with as well. There are many other ecosystem factors which are dealt with, local environment issues, local communities we have to engage with, labor groups which we have to engage with. So that is something which so our ability in any scenario to predict the last part of it perfectly is a challenge, right? So I think the first two parts, which is getting the plant readiness back, understanding go-to-market and products, I think those we are being fairly in good shape even in terms of what we projected.
The plants were shut down for nearly six years. We forecast it would be aggressively that we would get plants back in a year. We've got three plants up in 12 months, right? In fact, even lesser if you actually see the actual operating deals we had. We've had, obviously, challenges which we've had to deal with, right? Therefore, it's been an on-off, on-off situation. Now that the plants are fine so that's been the real issue, right? What we could predict, the things which you can control, which you can influence, which are not outside our control. That's been the factors which have been here. Nobody wants us. We obviously want to. We bought the asset. We want to ramp it up quickly. We put in resources to kind of scale that up.
So we want to always work on it in the hardest way possible. What gives us confidence now is, obviously, our plants are up. Three of the plants are up. We are operationally there. We are getting the customer trials are going on in different products. So we are in the process of ramping it up. And I think just the fact that we have operational stability now is what gives me the most confidence, right, that we will start seeing scale-up. I think at this stage, I'm not going to give you a number saying INR 150 crore-INR 160 crore, etc. But I think you will start seeing meaningful progress in terms of getting this up and going. But that's been the real challenge which has been there.
Okay. Got it. But even in SOP, we are seeing similar patterns that in Q1, FY 2026, we have stated meaningful contribution. But in the last quarter, Q2, we have stated that trials will only happen after Q4, and production will start post-monsoon next year in FY 2027. So we are seeing persistent delays in other segments. So are there some issues fundamentally? You have obviously clarified on bandwidth issues that you are saying that they don't exist. But just trying to understand why these delays are happening in all these segments.
Well, I think I mean, it's a fair point in one way, obviously, from outside. And several of our programs have got the data. I'm going to take that on as a matter of fact because they are a matter of facts. I think clearly, our ability to what I think is the one thing which we can do a lot better on is our ability to see the interplay between external and internal factors and organize ourselves better to respond to them, right? And that's the piece which we are investing a lot more on doing right now. So if you look at the SOP issue, I think there have been technical delays. We are working with a technology partner. Their pilot trials do take time. I won't say it's hit and miss, but there are multiple scenarios which they test on.
We have to do it; it's a bit iterative because you get results from every trial and try to rework it. We went into FY 2025, FY 2026 thinking that we are in a good shape there. But obviously, as we did the trials, we gave you an update that we will actually require more time on it. I think Idealis or Oren is a very unique case because of the NCLT issue, right? I mean, these two in my mind are two big things which, as you called out, are probably have been more longer-term shifts. But one is very technical, and the other one, I think, is a bit of an ecosystem issue. Can we do a better job of synchronizing between external and internal factors? I think definitely. And that's our job as a management team to execute better. And hopefully, you will see that going forward.
All right. So then lastly, just building upon what.
Mr. Shah, sorry to interrupt you. Can you please rejoin the queue for more questions?
All right. Sure.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Rohit Sinha from Sunidhi Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thanks for taking my question. Most of my questions are already answered. Just one thing on the order backlog which we are trading around 6,500 tons for derivatives side. Obviously.
Probably.
Yeah, yeah.
Elemental bromine, not derivatives.
Okay. So that 6,500 tons is pertaining to, I mean, which geography or industry if you can indicate?
I think it's across the board. There's no specific factor of materiality in that. It's across the board. And the only thing I would say is that it's not 6,500 tons which is all due. Our contracts are stamped for different delivery dates. So it's not necessary that all 6,500 tons are actually all to be dispatched today. They are to be dispatched over a longer period of time, right? And that's why we have a balance between short-term contracts and long-term contracts in the portfolio. And as the volume starts getting ramped up, you will start seeing that getting kind of burnt out, right? Or it is getting repriced. But there's no specific trendline which has shifted in that. Largely, we remain heavily focused on the Asian markets for the larger part. And our segments still remain pretty much the same. No real shift.
Okay. Okay. So, industry-specific, if you can indicate.
Sorry?
For which industry these products are already? Do you have any indicator for the region-wise as Asia Pacific, mainly, will we be having these? But on the industry side, whom we are going to supply these on volumes?
Yeah. Why don't you, if you can, just send an email to SGA. Probably, I'm not able to understand the question very well. But if you can just send a query to our investor relations team, we will give you a more detailed response on it. I'm happy to.
Fair, fair enough.
I will share whatever is not very sensitive. But please let us know. Okay?
Okay. Just for information's sake, for these semiconductors, if you can just indicate the timeline from where this financial agreement will be completed and post how things will be progressing and by when we should start seeing the final output from the plants?
So I think as you mentioned earlier, one is on the ground. I think we've broken ground. We're going through topographical evaluations, land soil evaluations, and so on. So that is one program, one item which is going on. I think the funding framework has to be finalized. That's something which we are having discussions with the India Semiconductor Mission on. That's an external dependency which we don't have a clear end date on, right? We are in good shape there. We have got good progress happening there. Once that gets finalized, I think we'll be in a position to give you more specific details on timing and impact.
Okay. Okay. Fair enough. That is from my side, sir. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, in the interest of time, that was the last question. I would now like to hand the conference over to the management for the closing comments.
All right. Thank you all for joining us in the call today. We appreciate your time and continuing interest in the company. In case of any queries, you may please feel free to get in touch with SGA, Investor Relations Advisor. Obviously, I look forward to meeting all over the next call and some of you probably even before that. Thank you all for your interest and participation.
On behalf of Archean Chemical Industries Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines.