Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to Adani Ports and SEZ post-results group conference call. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in a 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. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Priyankar Biswas from Nomura. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you, Aman. We have with us the management of APSEZ for their opening remarks and subsequently to take your questions. From the management side, we have Mr. Karan Adani, the CEO and Whole-Time Director, APSEZ; Mr. Subrata Tripathy, CEO of the Ports Business.
Mr. Priyankar Biswas, sorry to interrupt you. Your audio is breaking, sir.
Is this better?
Yes. Please go ahead.
Yeah, it's better. We have with us the management of APSEZ for their opening remarks and subsequently to take your questions. From the management side, we have Mr. Karan Adani, CEO and Whole-Time Director, APSEZ, Mr. Subrata Tripathy, CEO of the Ports Business, Mr. Vikram Jaisinghani, MD and CEO, Adani Logistics, Mr. D. Muthukumaran, CFO, APSEZ, and Mr. Charanjit Singh, Head of Investor Relations and ESG, APSEZ. Without any delay, I will hand over to Karan and CJ for their opening remarks. Over to you, sir.
Ladies and gentlemen, a very good evening to one and all. Welcome to the quarter 1 FY 2023 conference call to discuss the operational and financial performance of Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Limited. You will be pleased to know that despite the economic headwinds globally, APSEZ delivered its strongest quarter in the company's history, wherein we have achieved various operational feats and established new benchmarks for ourselves. These include, firstly, a record quarterly cargo volume of 91 million metric tons, which is a 16% increase quarter-on-quarter. With reference to Q1 of the last financial year, the cargo volume increase for the quarter is around 8%. The quarter 1 last year had witnessed the post-COVID demand surge and was the strongest quarter of the year.
The average monthly run rate of 30 million metric tons in April to June 2022 is well-aligned to our full year volume guidance of 350-360 million metric tons. Carrying forward this record run rate into July, APSEZ achieved 100 million metric tons of cargo throughput in just 99 days, which is another record for the company. Our second achievement is the highest ever quarterly EBITDA of INR 3,005 crore, which is a good 11% jump over quarter one of last year. Thirdly, it's about the record year-on-year expansion in EBITDA margins of logistics business by 370 basis points. I believe that APSEZ growth story will further gain momentum in the coming months, supported by commissioning of new assets across both the ports and logistics business segments.
In quarter one, our logistics business added an MMLP at Taloja, commissioned 500,000 sq ft of warehousing capacity and operationalized three new agri terminals having a combined capacity of 0.15 million metric tons. Adani Logistics also added two new bulk cargo trains to its existing portfolio, which were put into operation from day one itself. The business also deployed 125 trailer trucks for providing the last mile connectivity at three of its MMLPs, which include Patli, Nagpur and Kishangarh. In the port business too, we have two new terminals coming into operation during the year, which will drive cargo volumes and our market share. The container terminal at Gangavaram Port will become operational next month and will help us gain market share in the hinterlands of Eastern India.
The 5 million metric ton LNG terminal at Dhamra is on track to be commissioned by December end. The terminal has a take or pay contract with couple of oil and gas majors, and the revenue will start soon thereafter. During the quarter, we also made two strategic acquisitions. First is the 100% acquisition of Ocean Sparkle Limited, which is India's leading third-party marine service provider with over 60% market share. Second is a bid for acquisition of 100% stake in the Haifa Port Company Ltd., which manages the largest commercial port of Israel. This winning bid was made in partnership with Gadot, with APSEZ having a 70% share. Our credit profile continues to remain strong with the net debt to EBITDA ratio well within our guided range while factoring all the organic and inorganic investments that we have announced.
Let me now invite Subrata, Vikram, Charanjit and Muthu for some more color on the operational, ESG and financial performance. Over to you, Subra.
Thank you, dear Charanjit. Hello, everybody on the call. Let me give you an overview of the performance of the port vertical. Cargo volumes. Mr. Karan Adani has already highlighted that APSEZ clocked record quarterly volumes of 91 million metric tons. This volume growth has been contributed by most ports, with Mundra Port traditionally, as always, leading this growth. Our Mundra Port continued its glorious journey and reflected 8% year-over-year growth in cargo volumes. Continuing with Q1 cargo run rate into July, Mundra clocked another feat of reaching 50 million metric tons of cargo handling in just 111 days. The port contributed about 47% of the total cargo volume share of APSEZ during the quarter.
From the perspective of East Coast and West Coast parity, the cargo volume share remains unchanged at 61% of ports on the West Coast and 39% of ports on the eastern coastline of India. The year-on-year cargo volume growth on the West Coast was higher this time, at 9% versus 6% on the East Coast. Looking at the cargo basket of Q1, the dry cargo share is 55%, containers share is 35% of the total volume, and liquids, including crude and gas, is at around 10%. Crude and gas is at about 8% of the total volumes. Talking about containers, APSEZ handled 31.5 million metric tons of container cargo during the quarter. The volumes grew by 3% year-on-year and 6% quarter-on-quarter.
Mundra continues to be India's significant and largest container handling port with 1.65 million TEUs in Q1 versus 1.48 million TEUs by JNPT. Our flagship port now handles 1/3 of the country's container cargo volumes. We believe that our focus on improving rail connectivity at Mundra, single window service to shipping lines, integrated supply chain solutions to end customers and a partnership model with large shipping lines through JV's approach, including double stacking of containers, is helping us drive this volume growth at Mundra Port. During our last call in May, I had mentioned about our efforts to strengthen the position in container segments and the addition of nine new container services, of which six services were added at Mundra Port and one each at Hazira, Tuticorin and Ennore ports.
Talking about dry bulk cargos, the total dry bulk cargo volume handled in the quarter is 50 million metric tons, which is a jump of 11% year-on-year and 26% quarter-on-quarter. Within this segment, coal grew 13% year-on-year and 41% quarter-on-quarter, and agri products have registered a growth of about 286% year-on-year and 72% quarter-on-quarter. Moving to liquid cargo, APSEZ handled liquid cargo volumes of 9.3 million metric tons, implying a growth of 6% year-on-year and 8% quarter-on-quarter. Majority of this growth was provided by crude and chemicals at Mundra and Hazira ports respectively. I now hand over to Vikram to update you on the logistics vertical. Over to you, Vikram. Thank you.
Thank you, Subrata. Good evening to everyone on the call. Let me give you an overview of the performance at the logistics vertical. Speaking about logistics operations in quarter one, Adani Logistics witnessed a 31% year-over-year growth in rail volume to 107,136 TEUs and a 54% year-over-year growth in terminal volume to 99,217 TEUs. This has been achieved with recommencement of operations at Kila Raipur Logistics Park in December 2021, the commissioning of Nagpur MMLP at the start of the year, and the commissioning of Taloja MMLP during quarter one this year. With the commissioning of these new MMLPs, the total count of operational MMLPs has increased to seven. Furthermore, the logistics park at Virudhunagar and Panipat are under development.
GPWIS vertical continued its growth trajectory as with new circuits added from mines to power plants to integrated steel plants. The bulk cargo transportation is gaining momentum. That has enabled us to more than double the cargo versus the corresponding year last year. In quarter one FY 2023, Adani Logistics handled 3.11 million metric tons against 1.42 million metric tons in quarter one FY 2022. We added two new rakes during the quarter, and with that, we now have 25 GPWIS rakes in our stable. Besides, orders have been placed for a total of 37 new trains under the GPWIS framework. Coming to Adani Agri Logistics.
Besides the three agri storage terminals with a total capacity of 0.1 million metric ton commissioned during the quarter, two more terminals, one at Darbhanga and another one at Samastipur, are under construction, with commissioning likely in the next financial year. In our warehousing business segment, we continued our journey to emerge as a leading player in Grade A warehousing, with focus on the commencement of new projects, including strategic acquisitions of warehousing assets. During quarter one FY 2023, another 0.6 million sq ft of incremental capacity was commissioned, thereby taking the total operational warehousing capacity to 1.4 million sq ft. Construction initiated on 4.5 million sq ft of warehousing capacity across four different locations Mundra, Moraiya, Ranoli, and Palwal.
We continue to work in line with our vision to become an end-to-end integrated logistics service provider in India by creating logistics infrastructure, including multimodal logistics parks, warehouses, grain silos, and complete rail solutions for container, liquid, grain, bulk and auto cargo. I will now hand over to Charanjit to update you on the ESG performance of APSEZ. Over to you, CJ.
Thank you, Vikram, and very good evening to everyone on the call. Let me start with carbon neutrality. There were three actions taken in Q1 focused on the agenda. First, we completed electrification of 4 e-train out of a total of 30. For the remaining trains, the work is in progress with target completion before the end of current financial year. Second, we initiated the mangrove reforestation on another 800 hectares of land. This is in line with our increased target for mangrove plantation from 4,000 to 5,000 hectares. Third, the energy team in the group has finalized the renewable electricity solution for implementation at APSEZ ports. The team is now developing a plan which will be rolled out in the coming months. Coming to our second focus area, that is ensuring water supply from non-competing sources at our ports.
We are currently evaluating possible solutions at Hazira, Krishnapatnam, and Dhamra ports. Once the solutions are implemented, it will take us to 80% of the company's target. The third focus area is community engagement. In Q1, we carried out impact assessment of three key initiatives undertaken in the last few years that were implemented by our partner, Adani Foundation. Finding of these assessments will help us to run more targeted programs. Alongside these focus areas, we are now regularly engaging with some of the ESG rating agencies to better understand their perspective and use the inputs to proactively integrate ESG aspects into our business, strategy and decision making. With this, let me now hand over to Muthu for an update on the financial performance. Over to you, Muthu.
Thanks, Charanjit. I will now present the financial highlights. For quarter one financial year 2023, company's consolidated revenues is INR 4,638 crores. At that level, it is nearly flat on a year-on-year basis and supported by 18% growth in port revenues and a 34% jump in logistics revenues, whereas SEZ segmental revenue is lower by INR 725 crores, which is in line with our expectations. Company's consolidated EBITDA for the quarter increased by 11% on a year-on-year basis to INR 3,005 crores. Turning to port operation, quarter one financial year 2023 revenue increased by 18% on a year-on-year basis to INR 4,090 crore, and the EBITDA also increased by 18% on a year-on-year basis to INR 2,885 crores.
Both of these are on the back of 8% increase in the cargo volume. Overall port margin stood at around 71%. Now turning to logistics business. Revenues from this segment was INR 360 crore, a growth of 34% on a year-on-year basis, contributed by all its sub-segments, namely container rate, bulk rate, terminal traffic, and agri logistics. Significant increase in EBITDA and in the margins of this segment is a result of our efforts to diversify into bulk cargo, to eliminate loss-making routes, and to improve efficiencies. EBITDA grew by 56% to INR 96 crore, and the margins expanded by 370 basis points to 27%. I will now turn to profit.
Profit before tax for this quarter is INR 1,030 crore, and after factoring a negative income tax of INR 61 crore, consolidated profit after tax of the company for quarter 1 FY 2023 is INR 1,092 crore. Please note that these profits are after providing for non-cash mark-to-market loss of INR 1,201 crore on the dollar-denominated loan, which is also the main reason why we have a net negative tax at the company level.
APSEZ continues to enjoy investment grade rating by all three rating agencies. While S&P and Moody's have been maintaining a stable outlook, even Fitch recently improved its outlook to stable from the earlier negative. I will end by mentioning that the company continues to maintain all key ratios within the desired level in spite of the rapid growth. With that, let me hand over to Mr. Karan Adani for his closing remarks.
Let me summarize our performance for the quarter. It has been a stellar period for APSEZ, particularly from an operational perspective, wherein we experienced record cargo volume and highest ever quarterly EBITDA in the history of the company. Looking forward, while the developed world appears to be in economic distress, India's growth story appears resilient with a limited impact of the global environment.
APSEZ, given its formidable footprint along India's coastline, access to over 90% of the country's hinterland, and its growing asset base across the port and logistics business segment, is all set to capitalize on the opportunity that comes its way. Our cargo volume run rate of 30 million metric tons in the initial four months of FY 2023 is in line with our guidance of 350-360 million metric tons for the full year, and will enable us to deliver our guided EBITDA of INR 12,200-INR 12,600 crore. Let me conclude by saying that our focus on customer centricity and sustainability will enable APSEZ to achieve its growth ambitions and become a global force in the ports industry. With this, we can open the lines for question and answer. Ladies and gentlemen, a very good evening.
Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on the 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 the first question from the line of from Sumit Kishore from Axis Capital. Please go ahead.
Good evening. My compliments to the management team on a very strong performance in the logistics business and your continued leadership in the ports business. My first question is in relation to your vision to be the largest ports and logistics platform in the coming decade. If you could elaborate on this vision, who are you benchmarking against and you know where are we at present? That's the first question.
Thanks, Sumit, for that question. You know, when we look at... We have set a goal that by 2030 we want to be the largest transport utility. On that front, basically we are looking at the whole value chain from the factory gate to the port. Basically we are looking to create a model horizontally as well as vertically in each of the business lines that we would be entering. Just to give you an idea, we are already there on the rail business. We are there on the ICD. Now we are looking at warehousing. We are looking at trucking business. We are looking at the ports.
Ports we are already there, and in ports we are adding, like, marine services. I think we will keep adding businesses as we go to make sure that we get a full control of the cargo when it comes to the whole logistics chain. Basically the idea is that you integrate all of that and remove the middlemen in each of those transactions and give an end-to-end visibility, end-to-end service as well as commercially and operationally to the customer. I think to be honest, globally there are not a lot of people who are doing this across the board. Basically in each of those verticals that we would look at, we would look at benchmarking it individually.
That's how we would look at it. I think we would keep adding businesses every year to ensure that we reduce that volatility into the volumes, to bring that more stickiness in the volumes, in all our business. That's the goal.
Is the question answered, Sumit?
Sorry, my audio went away for a moment. I heard large part of what Karan said. Can I move to the next question, please?
Yes, please.
Yeah. Karan, my second question is on the ROCE profile of your logistics business, which appears to be well below your mature ports. Given your plans outlined post the FY 22 result to raise capital allocation for logistics, could this prove to be a bit of a drag in the interim on the consolidated ROCE target of 20% for Adani Ports? Could you please speak about, you know, the ROCE profile for your incremental investments in the logistics business?
Yeah. Yeah. Hi, Sumit Kishore. Charan is here. That's not the case. If you look into a bit more detail with respect to the financing what we are doing and the amount of ROE generation. You don't have to look over a year or two. You will have to take a longer timeframe into consideration. If you average it out over 10+ years, you will see that the ROCE is well in line with it is closing towards the port's numbers what we have given. From a ROE perspective, I think that is even higher generation, higher ROE in comparison to even the port, because it's more like an annuity model and our financing is primarily largely debt post the construction of the warehouse.
Very happy to discuss in detail the numbers because we have the model for that, and we can run you through the model in case you are interested.
Well, thanks, CJ. I'll pick it up with you again. My last question is on the Exim rail container volumes for Adani Ports, which were well ahead of market growth. You know, you're clearly gaining market share. Just wanted to check whether there is any sacrifice on margins here because the market leader on its conference call claimed that, you know, some private players were gaining market share, but they were pricing aggressively to achieve that. Just some comments here would be useful.
Yeah. No. Our revenue on a per TEU basis, we've not taken any hit. Actually, we have increased our prices across the board on the container. If you see, we have gained market share on the railway side where we have a advantage over other competitors, other ports. No, to answer your question, our EBITDA margins have been north of 70% on container, and our pricing has also increased on a per TEU basis.
Sure. Thank you so much, and I'll join the queue then. Thanks, and I wish you all the best.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Mohit Kumar from DAM Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good evening, sir, and congratulations on good set of numbers, especially on the port revenue and EBITDA side. My question is, given the geopolitics, you know, how do you see the cargo, especially if you can give cargo-wise outlook in the sense container, crude and coal. Are you more bullish about coal and crude this year compared to container? And do you see any risk emerging on the container on this in second half?
So far, we are not seeing any slowdown on any of the commodities. We see our run rates, you know, crossing 30 million ton mark every month. I think on a short term to medium term, we are not seeing any slowdown as of now.
Are you more bullish about crude and coal this year compared to last year?
No, I think, as manufacturing base increases in the country, I think energy is going to increase. We are not bullish, but I would say we believe that energy imports in the country are going to continue. I think you will see more addition of power plants or manufacturing units, which will enhance the consumption of the energy. I think, and that will indirectly anyway benefit the port. I don't see. We don't see any slowdown on coal imports or on crude as well.
Sir, on the Gangavaram, what is delaying the completion or acquisition of Gangavaram? There's been fabulous improvement in the revenue and EBITDA of the Gangavaram. Can you please shed some light on that?
The NCLT process of Gangavaram is at final stage. We expect the final hearing to close by end of this month, I mean, we should be able to take over the port by end of this month. That is the expected timeline. Sorry, what was your second question?
The financial performance of Gangavaram has been superb. If you can please comment on that. What is driving their performance?
No. That is, as if you remember at this, when we took over the port, we had outlined our various initiatives that we will be doing to improve the margins and and improve the revenue. These are whatever you're seeing are the numbers of the actions that we are taking, which we had outlined at least when we took over the port.
Understood, sir. Thank you and best of luck, sir. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Ashish Shah from Centrum Broking. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good evening to everybody, and thank you for the opportunity. The first question is that, in terms of the realizations that there's been a visible improvement in the quarter, so are there any specific tariff hikes that you would have taken during the quarter?
First quarter is generally where we renegotiate all our contracts, and this is an effect of that.
Right. To that extent, it can obviously be expected to continue.
Yes, that's right.
Sure. Right. Secondly, on the Krishnapatnam Port, there has been a significant drop in the container volumes handled in the port. Anything that you want to highlight, what are you really doing to get the volumes back? Because when you acquired, it was doing something like half a million TEUs. Anything you could highlight there, sir, please.
If you look at the southern sector, and that's where we have kind of reclassified the way we handle the containers and the penetration in that particular hinterland. I would not like to see Krishnapatnam in isolation, rather in the southern sector, where we have been consistently growing at Kattupalli and Ennore. The Krishnapatnam was earlier linked to the feeder services, which have had a little bit of disruption. To that extent, we have regained our share and recast the way we handle the southern market at Kattupalli and at Ennore. You will see addition of new services. As well as if you look at both these at Kattupalli, and we have been growing very healthy. Krishnapatnam, we are reworking on a new strategy to see that we get into the feeder business of the South Asian region.
We are also looking at certain of the initiatives of the government of India in the BIMSTEC region. As and when they mature, we will see that we get the feeder volumes back from Krishnapatnam in this catchment area of Bangladesh, Myanmar, et cetera. This will become a transshipment hub for these, you know, geographies in the future. Watch out for Q3, where we will be certainly getting back our services in Krishnapatnam, certainly. Incidentally, on Krishnapatnam, while on the container story, it has been a little subdued. Otherwise, especially on the coal volumes, happy to note that when we took over, we hadn't had cape facilities in all the handling of the berths.
Today, we have more than four berths we are enabled entirely for cape facilities, and we are doing very, very well on the coal front at Krishnapatnam, particularly, as well as serving the catchment area of the steel plants in the southern sector, namely JSW and the power plants which, Karan has elaborated both for AP Genco and for the Karnataka Power, as well as for the other private powerhouses, namely Sembcorp in Andhra. Watch out Q3, we will have a revival of containers in Krishnapatnam, certainly. Thank you.
Got that, sir. Last one from my side. In March, we had signed an agreement with IOCL for handling incremental 10 million tons of crude annually. Any further development and anything that you could pencil in terms of our future expectations?
This is linked with the Panipat expansion. As and when the expansion of the refinery happens, which is expected in 2024, the volumes will flow into Mundra.
Got it. Thank you. I'll come back in the future. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is on the line of Girish from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Thanks for the question, Muthu . Sir, on the realization, is there something more than normal that you've taken this time around? Because it appears that the realization increased YOY certainly much higher. Is it specifically to do with cargo mix as well or something more than usual?
No, there is no major change in realization except for that, if you look YOY, there was some one-off revenues which were from the sale of jetty and land leasing, which are currently in the SEZ segment. Otherwise, if you try to compare on the port side, then there's a nominal increase which has happened. Also whatever changes you see is also a resultant of the change in the cargo mix.
Okay. Sorry to harp on this question, but on the coal volumes, I think we did probably about 12%-13% growth YOY. Karan, what's the outlook here on coal and containers obviously have seen sluggish growth. I don't know if it's base effect, but if you could highlight, I mean, what's the outlook for coal and containers?
First on container, you would have, as Karan has explained, you would have seen that we are going through a very good cycle until in July, the first month, that we have seen a little drop in exports, and that's because of the volatility of the international market. Happy to note, you will see that India's sustained penetration in the world market as far as the trading, you know, penetration is concerned, is growing by the month. The high pricing of, you know, crude oil, et cetera, has meant that the balance of trade has differed. To that extent, there's a slight, I would say, hesitation in the volumes in July as far as exports are concerned.
India's penetration into value-added engineering goods means that we will continue to see a rise in exports barring one or two months aside. On the exim front, you will see that our container growth has been quite sustained. The fact that Mundra emerges as the gateway of the exim trade in containers of India. We clarified to you that at 1.65 million TEUs versus JNPT, which was the traditional gate at 1.48. Since the last more than a year and a half, we have been well ahead in the race. We are not very concerned about container export per se. Coming on the coal front, you will see that there has been quite a rally around growth about coal, and that is because of two factors, certainly.
The core sector growth fueled by POL, fertilizer and the industrial growth. You will see that the conventional energy generation has grown by more than 15.6% in India in YTD basis. Which means, like never before, while the winds of recession are blowing across the world, India stands as a very splendid example of growth over here. In coal per se, when we look at APSEZ, we have grown at more than 20% and at a YTD basis as on the end of July. While in the quarter we were quite well set at a 13% growth, we are actually growing when I look at a YTD up to July. Having handled about 41 million metric tons last year and now at 49.49, which is a very healthy 20% growth. We see coal going quite northwards.
In that segment, of course, Exim import coal for the power sector does grow. Also happy to note that coking coal, which is an input to the steel plants, and that is where our ports at Dhamra, Gangavaram, Krishnapatnam, play a very clear, crucial role in the supply chain and management of the steel plants, starting from, say, Tata Steel, Rashmi Group, Jindal Steel, JSW Steel. We are well-entrenched into that. We are extremely bullish about coal. In the coking coal segment, both in market share as well in growth, we are ahead of the all India figures.
Thanks, Subrat. Just a clarification. I mean, in your INR 360 billion target, what kind of coal volumes, I mean thermal coal volumes are you baking in? Because the government, as we see, given the sluggish July numbers and obviously the inventory that has happened, increase in the coal-based power plant has already relaxed, the condition to import coal. Just want to understand what numbers are you working with in your annual guidance for coal this year?
We will, in fact, as clarified when we did the budgeting exercise in the annual guidance, two things. We see we've been logging 30+ every month consistently, which is in line with our guidance of 350-360. That is point number one. Point number two, when we sat down, we had a little more, you know, kind of a more optimistic picture on the minerals. Certain kind of a course correction or a certain kind of a relook into the sector has been done by government in imposing export duties on iron ore and on steel, which has meant that while the core sector growth is very bullish, the input cost has certainly come in. To that extent, our expectations are belied by more rally on EXIM coal. We will stick to the guidance.
In fact, we will go beyond on the coal at large. We will also recover on coking coal. Where, as I clarified, we are quite, I mean, slightly ahead. On Exim input coal, yes, you are correct. I can come back to tell you that, traditionally, with the onset of monsoon, Indian coal mines are besotted with the problem of, you know, water logging, et cetera. The coal offtake from the coal mines does come down. Not withstanding that, since the comfort level in the power plants has come back to a certain level, we do expect that the expectation that the blending which the government has given a guidance from 20% has been relaxed down. It gives an apprehension in the mines that coal volumes may come down. Let me clarify.
At this moment, with vessel nominations for the next one quarter, we are seeing quite an amount of healthy nominations on all our ports, especially the western ports of Mundra and Dahej, which are linked to the central Indian powerhouses. There's a very large offtake of coal. If you look at it further, while the Indian coal that goes from the eastern sector, that is from Jharkhand, Bengal, and from Chhattisgarh and Odisha, would be beset with monsoon, the northern powerhouses for import substitution will depend on Mundra and Dahej. You'll be happy to note that not only are we receiving healthy volumes, we are also seeing a record offtake in terms of Indian Railways giving us rakes at both these ports. We are extremely bullish about the coal outlook.
Thanks for the detailed explanation. Just one bookkeeping question. Can you share the CapEx number for the quarter and any ballpark net debt number, please?
See, our guidance for the full year remains same, and we generally don't give the quarterly numbers on the CapEx.
We're on track with this one.
We are on track with respect to the guidance what we have given.
Thanks, Vijay Kumar Biyani.
Thank you. A reminder to our participants, please press star and one if you wish to ask a question. We have the next question from the line of Abhiram Iyer from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Yes, sir. Thank you for taking my question, and congratulations on a good set of results. My question is pertaining to the ForEx losses of INR 1.2 billion that you made, that you took this quarter. Sorry, INR 12 billion that you took this quarter. Could you let us know because, you know, the USD bonds have dropped in value and because you're taking MTM losses on forex, is there any plan to buy back some of the bonds?
There are no plans as such for the buyback.
Got it. The current cash balance that you have, which was significant as of March, that would primarily be used for the capital expenditure and for, you know, the acquisitions that we're doing currently?
That's it.
Okay, thanks. Thanks a lot for the clarification.
Our next question is from the line of Swarnim Maheshwari from Edelweiss Securities. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for the opportunity. Sir, in their opening remarks you mentioned about, we have added about 125 trucks for the last mile connectivity. There seems to be some change in our approach, because earlier the trucking business was supposed to be on a leasing basis. Now over here we are actually owning those trucks. What is leading to such a change? If you can just highlight that.
Yes, Swarnim. This is, you know, as part of our moving into a transport utility. We believe that the time is right now to enter into the trucking business and to start with giving the last mile connectivity from our ICDs. Basically, with that, able to divert volume from competing ICDs as well, at the same time reduce the operating costs, I mean, reduce the logistics cost for the exporter and the importer. That's the reason why we have to look at it, and we believe that time is right to enter this market and to scale it up going forward.
Got it. This would be 100% captive, right? No third party over here for us.
No, no, it's 100% captive.
Okay. Sorry, any sort of guidance that you would like to give what kind of trucking or what kind of trucks that we are looking at the end of FY 25? Some guidance over there.
No, I think it's too early to give guidance on that. At an appropriate time, we will come out with the whole plan for trucking the similar way what we have done for warehousing.
Okay. Sure. Sure. Also, there was a media article on our collaboration with the AD Ports Group for the infra investments in Tanzania. If you could just highlight, you know, we are looking towards the African market now. We're just kind of extending not just our port gate operations but also our boundaries. If you could just highlight, you know, our take on this Tanzania foray.
Yeah, sure. It's, you know, as we've always stated that outside India we are looking at eastern African regions. The reason why we have partnered with AD Ports is because it gives us a sovereign cover from a risk perspective. Basically what we are looking at is we are looking at existing terminals both on bulk container as well as liquids, in Tanzania to start with, but eventually to roll it out across Africa and create that network. That's what we are looking at. The reason, as I said, we chose AD Ports is apart from being a credible partner in the ports and logistics, it also gives us a sovereign cover from a risk perspective.
Thank you, Mr. Maheshwari. Request to join the queue for any follow-up as we have several participants waiting for their turn. Thank you. Our next question is on the line of Sanjay Parekh from Sohum Asset Managers. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thank you, Prutee. I have two questions. One is, you know, when in this global acquisitions, one of them that we recently did, and the other one, of course, we are actually trying to grow globally. What sort of efficiency gains can we get? I mean, clearly we are very, very efficient. That is one area that I have. Second is, in terms of, you know, our group ambitions itself in terms of capitalizing different sectors, will that become meaningful for us in terms of capital goods imports and later on regular annuity volumes? That's the second. Third, pricing, I mean, EBITDA per ton per se over next three years, can we see that growing at least 3%-5% in terms of EBITDA per ton?
That's the third.
Sanjay, can you repeat the third question?
Yeah. The EBITDA per ton that we have today, which has done well over two, three years, can we see that growing up 3%-5% more?
Let me answer the third question first. EBITDA on a per ton basis will keep increasing because as we've always guided that our revenue on a per ton basis will increase by 1.5%-2%. We are always looking at ways to reduce our costs to increase our EBITDA margin. On an EBITDA per ton basis for ports, we will keep increasing by 2.5%-3%. That is well on target. I think your second question on the group perspective, as you know that we Adani Enterprises has announced the Adani New Industries, which is the hydrogen-based economy. That whole thing will be set up in Mundra.
As it gets developed, it will become captive volume. It's hard to give you the numbers on what it is because the plans are being finalized. As and when it does get finalized with the, with the, you know, when we have more clarity on the numbers, we will definitely communicate. On the first question that is on the, I'm assuming you are asking about Haifa Port.
Yes. I mean, similarly, there certainly would be efficiency gains as you acquire them. Globally, that's the idea that, you know, when you acquire them, the meaningful change in EBITDA per ton or realization, I mean, if we can get some perspective of the gap they have.
What we can do.
On Haifa Port, we have a detailed presentation in terms of what, which we will send across to you. In Haifa Port, more than the efficiency gain, it is more of increasing our volumes on the port side. Second is the real estate development. These are the two big value drivers over there. Yes, there is efficiency gain, but the efficiency gain is roughly 10 to-
Yeah. The majority of the efficiency gains with respect to Haifa are coming from the retirement of existing employees, where they have signed for a voluntary retirement plan couple of years back. The cost of that is also factored in, was factored in two years back. We have given a detailed presentation, which reflects roughly NIS 100 million savings just on account of those retirements. We don't have to add any further employees for the volume set which we see. The detailed plan with respect to the pessimistic scenario and our base case is provided in the presentation. I'm happy to share that after this call.
Yeah. Thank you. Best wishes. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Lokesh Garg from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Good evening. I just want to ask you basically on this logistics business, you have had stupendous growth over the last two years, and government obviously has been delaying the CONCOR divestment. Let's say in a hypothetical scenario of this divestment getting delayed further, by November, you have already reached roughly one-fourth the size of CONCOR in exim business. As you sort of grow organically, does this inorganic acquisition start to sound less attractive over a period of time?
No, I think it is not one or the other. I think the way we would look at it is we would look at both, and we look at both the engines independently and keep growing. I think India has a long way to go in terms of our logistics potential. I think there is personally, if you ask me, there is room for not just one CONCOR, but I think there is room for two or three CONCORs. I think that's how we would look at it. I would not say that because we are growing, we would not look at CONCOR.
Sure. My other question is related to Dhamra LNG terminal, which you say is coming up in later part of the year. What is the total CapEx schedule over there? How much is our equity? And any sort of visibility on LNG, LPG volumes that we had in the quarter alongside that?
Yeah. Dhamra LNG, as you know, is a 50/50 JV with APSEZ and TotalEnergies. The total project cost is roughly INR 4,500 crores. I don't have the exact numbers, but it is roughly INR 4,500 crores, and it is at 70/30 debt equity. We expect the terminal to get commissioned by November end. The commissioning cargo is coming in November, and we expect the terminal to get fully commissioned by December end. As you know, Dhamra LNG has a take or pay contract with IOC and GAIL. It is a 5 million ton per annum terminal, and there is a 4.5 million ton take or pay contract with both IOC and GAIL.
We aim to retain the terminal in this 50/50 structure? Because usually we are interested in marine side of business and not in regasification and all. In this case, you will retain the full terminal 50/50.
Marine side is 100% owned by BPCL by Dhamra Port. The backup infrastructure, that is the tankage and the regas facility, is a 50/50 between TotalEnergies and APSEZ. We will retain that 50/50 ratio.
Yeah. My last question relates to this GPWIS, General Purpose Wagon Investment Scheme. Now, thing is, the scheme obviously gets you to invest in assets of railways, and railways in turn give you some incentives. But often there are restrictions related to circuit on which some of your trains can run and tied in customers from both ends and things like that. You have been able to obviously create a fairly large business in that niche. Can you just explain a little bit more about that business? How is it running? How is it getting created? And what is the revenue model out of it? Because I think primarily at least it used to operate on a discount to general freight rates of railways.
No. I think the business model is very robust. Okay. Over and above the rebate that railways gave us, we also charge a premium in lieu of assured services, thereby giving our customers a lot of other benefits like lower inventory costs, increased service levels. Say, for example, somebody has to run a power plant and his plant has to be starved of coal, that cost is much higher than you know, giving a little premium for getting assured services in the form of rate. This is working out very well for us in terms of return on investment and also the customers who see a lot more other benefits in their operations because of getting reliable services and all. Works out well, and that is how the model is serving the test of time.
Business is growing. Our demand is actually increasing quarter-over-quarter, and this is likely to continue. As far as the
Circuits are concerned. You're right that these circuits are pre-worked with the customer. The customers have a good visibility for the next six months on how this circuit will work. Based on that prior approval has to be taken from the Indian Railways, and they have in fact been now more flexible in giving permissions. In case of certain changes, like sometimes the import of iron ores and all those things get impacted because of change of policy, we always go back to the Railways with different circuits, modified circuits, and that operationally has served us well without any loss of business or any loss of service to the customer. Railways has been very supportive because they also believe that this complements well with their growth of trade strategy.
It's win-win for everyone, railways, us, and the business, and the customers.
Thank you. Sagar, Vikash is joined with you for any follow-up. We have the next question from the line of Abhishek Nigam from B&K Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Just two questions from me. One, the rise in employee expenses, if you could just give us some more details around that. That's my first question.
Sorry, can you repeat that question?
The rise in employee expenses on a QoQ basis seems like a fairly big rise over there. If you could just give us some, you know, more color over there.
There was a one-time incentive paid to all the employees as a special incentive for crossing 300 million ton mark. It's a one-time expense. It's not a recurring expense.
Okay, thanks. My second question is, couple of quarters back, you know, we were talking about another terminal in Gopalpur. I wanted to check what's happening there because I was on the Petronet LNG call on Friday and, you know, they have basically announced that they are in advanced stages of doing an FSRU. So just, you know, if you have any more color over there, like is there a change in plans or something?
We don't have anything in Gopalpur. We have signed an MoU with IOCL for LPG in Gangavaram.
Okay. Okay, no worries. That's it from me. Thank you so much.
Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Mohit Kumar from DAM Capital. Please go ahead.
Hello. Thanks for the opportunity once again. So my question is, are we seeing the impact of DFCC? I know it's very difficult to segregate the impact. Are we seeing the impact of DFCC on the rail coefficient? If you can broadly lay out the, you know, throw some color in the sense, how it is, the shift is happening with the rail and road.
Well, thank you. See the DFC, as I understand, connects, as contemplated, to connect NCR to JNPT, and the node would come from the mainline at Palanpur to Mundra, which is on a JV model where we, along with the Kutch Railway Company Limited, are one of the partners in developing the last mile connectivity to Mundra port. As of today, the DFC has been harnessed best in favor of Mundra. One is the advantage of distance that Mundra enjoys over JNPT for a distance of about 330 kilometers and over Pipavav, where a distance of roughly about 100 kilometers, 97 to be very precise. Now, this benefit of the DFC may not be seen in mere isolation. The fact that it has proximity to the NCR region has led to a predictability in train running.
Hitherto, the DFC, Mundra is the only port where between the container train operators, Indian Railways and the port, we are able to run predictable services in the export stream. Hitherto the DFC coming, a train would normally take more than about unpredictable pattern of more than about three days. Today, happy to announce that we are able to run predictable trains in less than 30 hours. We wish to do this also for the import stream as we go forward. We are working very closely with the CTOs and Indian Railways. The other thing that has been kind of a derived thing from the DFC and particularly in favor of Mundra, has been the double stacking. You will see that over the years, our penetration into the NCR region has been growing.
Today the rail coefficient at Mundra is at, you know, we are doing at about close to 37% rail penetration. We seem to have stabilized at that. Before the COVID we were less than 30%, but now we have stabilized at more than 37%. As the years come, we will intend to grow on that. But that will also mean on the choice of the pattern of the export and import that will take place. The second more important aspect of the DFC is the double stack benefit, which is a pure volume benefit that the customer is deriving from carrying about an additional 45 boxes on each train.
Happy to announce, last year we had guided you that we are concentrating very, very significantly in aligning with the CTOs and the ICD operators, including our own operation at Patli. Today, as a result of these actions, the double stacking is at about 58%, showing a growth of close to more than 14% on a year-on-year basis. These are the, you know, kind of very significant developments which have arisen out of the DFC. Thank you.
Sir, one clarification. Is the expansion of Kutch Railway Company, which was happening, is it complete?
The latest target score is a certain amount of a doubling. It would have been, but for COVID, has a little reset. The latest is that it will be completed by December. The section from Palanpur to Samakhiyali, and then on to Mundra will be an entire double line section. From Palanpur to Delhi is double line on the main line in any case. Our last stretch of our 90-odd kilometers, which is well into the thing, is getting doubled. Also the fact it's getting electrified, and this electrification would mean fit for double stacking. In turn, in line with that, we are also electrifying a line from Adipur to Mundra on the last leg of our own, you know, the last mile connectivity on what is the JV on the NDR line.
That is in tune with the KRCL doubling as well as the electrification.
Understood, sir. Thank you, and all the best. Thank you.
Thank you so much.
Thank you. The next question is on the line of Vijay Kumar Biyani from Spark Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good evening. This 350-360 metric tons of expected volumes for this year, does it include Haifa Port?
No, it does not include Haifa Port.
What would be the debt at the Haifa Port Company?
Right now it's a cash surplus company. There is no debt in that company.
Okay. My second question is on the opportunity coming up from the major port terminals in India. I know we have covered most of the geographies and hinterlands by expanding till now. We had a bid for a few terminals in JNPT recently, and we were not able to bid for some terminals on the east side. What are the opportunities coming? What would be our interest and some color on how our capacity in the major port terminals will grow?
At the portfolio level of APSEZ that we have, and a penetration into 90% of India's hinterland, and with a very robust capital CapEx structure that we have, we would like to consolidate the APSEZ at portfolio itself. In line with, let's say, let's take one or two instances to give you a little more color. In Mundra, along with the port terminals, we are going ahead with the addition of another container terminal at CT5. We are rationalizing one of our CTs so that we go from a capacity from about 0.7-0.8 million TEUs to about 1.3 million TEUs. We would rather that we expand at each of our ports. Likewise, you saw at Gangavaram, where we saw the opportunity, the container terminal is ready to receive the vessels.
In fact, by the time we announce, the next time we're doing a call, we'll be happy to announce that we've had the first vessel call. Similarly, we would be also looking to exploit and grow our Ennore terminal, which we already are there, and at Kattupalli. We'd also like to see that in the northeastern part of the Indian eastern coastline, we have Dhamra Port. As and when we develop Dhamra, we want to see that part of the large hinterland which is landlocked, but for the deep seas at Dhamra, where we are developing a container terminal. We'd rather that we consolidate our own portfolio and have the containers to us. As and when opportunities do come up, we'll evaluate, but we would like to grow the APSEZ portfolio and strengthen it further.
Understood, sir. Thank you and all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Pulkit Patni from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Sir, thank you for taking my questions. The first one is more of a clarification. I think there was some confusion at the start of the call in terms of realization. Is this understanding correct that because of rupee depreciation and quite a lot of our revenue comes in US dollar, the realization on a QOQ basis, which has gone up from INR 421 to INR 450 in my calculation, a large part of it is contributed just by the depreciation of the rupee? Is that understanding right?
No, that understanding is not right. Only a small part of it is because of rupee depreciation. A large part of the increase is the actual increase in our revenue on a per ton basis. Second, a large part of the increase is due to the mix change, cargo mix change.
Okay. Could you highlight what is that, per ton revenue increase that we would have taken on a QOQ basis?
The details we can give you later in terms of. We'll look into the details of the number and share it after the call, if that's okay.
Okay. That should be fine. My second question is, you know, if you were to explain more in a layman's language, what is the advantage for, say, an exporter or an importer based out of NCR to work with Adani Rail vis-a-vis. What I'm trying to understand is, because now that we are owning trucks, we own the port, can you just explain what is the advantage for a user to work with Adani Rail vis-a-vis any other CPO?
I think Karan explained it earlier, but let me amplify our offering. We are the only player who can offer end-to-end offering to a customer. A customer will need reliable port services. A customer will need reliable train services. I think we excel. Very happy to say that we were awarded the best national logistics, rail logistics player very recently by the Ministry of Commerce. Obviously, we have done a lot to merit our
Rail efficiencies and the services that we provide to all the customers. Customers are not just satisfied with this. They look at very specialized infrastructure to give their specific needs of the supply chain. Special warehouses. Okay. They need specific end-to-end first mile, last mile delivery of trucking to suit their specific requirement. I think we are the only ones who can give all this in one offering. Let's say CONCOR. CONCOR does not give you trucking. CONCOR does not give you these kind of warehousing services that we have given. We are very proud that many years back, the kind of warehousing facilities that we developed for Maruti for their end-to-end auto structure is still considered the best in class infrastructure for the auto sector.
Similarly, we are building a lot of such specialized facilities or tailor-made facilities, custom-made facilities for all our customers. That makes us quite unique. That makes us very formidable in terms of giving an end-to-end solution with the person. Customer does not have to look at anyone else.
Fair point. Very clear, and that I would guess, would also make the cargo very sticky once you do customization.
That's the whole strategy. That's where we kind of come out as a complete end-to-end transport utility company.
Fair point. Thank you. Thanks for answering my questions.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question for today. I now hand the conference over to the management for their closing remarks.
Thank you everyone, for taking out the time to join this call. Hoping that all your questions or queries have been answered. In case there are still any pending, and especially as we said, we'll come back to you. You can call us after this call and we'll be happy to provide any details.
Thank you very much. Yeah. Thank you very much, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of Nomura and Adani, that concludes this conference. Thank you all for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.