Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to Chemplast Sanmar Limited Q2 FY 2025 earnings conference call. This conference call may contain forward-looking statements about the company, which are based on the beliefs, opinions, and expectations the company has on the date of this call. These statements are not the guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties that are difficult to predict. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. If you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing the star, then zero, or a touch-tone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Ramkumar Shankar, Managing Director. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you, and good morning, everybody. On behalf of Chemplast Sanmar Limited, I extend a very warm welcome to everyone joining us on our call today. On this call, we are joined by our CFO, Natarajan Muralidharan, Dr. Krishna Kumar Rangachari, who heads our Custom Manufactured Chemicals division, and SGA, our Investor Relations Advisor. I hope everyone has had an opportunity to go through the financial results and investor presentation, which have been uploaded on the stock exchange website and on our company's website. After a healthy performance in Q1 FY 2025, PVC prices resumed their volatile trajectory due to excessive dumping and witnessed a significant downturn during Q2 FY 2025. Amidst this tough environment, we were able to deliver a reasonable performance during the quarter, with a top line of INR 993 crores.
On a half-yearly basis, the company reported a top line of INR 2,138 crores for H1 FY 2025, a growth of 8% on a year-on-year basis, despite multiple headwinds. On the volume front, the company has registered a 6% year-on-year growth. It is pertinent to note that if we compare H1 performance on a year-on-year basis, the company has performed much better than in the previous year. Talking about key trends in the Paste PVC market, the apparent consumption of Paste PVC in India during the period April to September 2024 was around 92 kt, showing a very good increase of 19% over the same period last year. We expect that while this rate of growth may taper down a bit in the second half, the market will show a good growth in FY 2025 over FY 2024.
The provisional ADD, the anti-dumping duty on Paste PVC, which was announced in June 2024, provided some initial respite and ensured zero imports from China and lower imports from Thailand and Taiwan. However, the expected impact on prices from the provisional anti-dumping duty was negated due to a surge in dumping from the European Union. The imports from the EU have doubled during H1 FY 2025 as compared to the same period last year. This is being taken up with the concerned authorities. Moving on to Suspension PVC, in the first half of the current financial year, Suspension PVC demand in the country showed an impressive growth of around 11% over the same period last year, with the apparent consumption of around 2.2 million tons. This increase in demand arises out of India's thrust on irrigation, infrastructure, and drinking water supply.
We believe that the demand growth will sustain in the rest of the year, and the demand for FY 2025 will show a healthy increase over FY 2024. Internationally, with most economies continuing to underperform, there is a slowdown in demand elsewhere. This has resulted in large-scale dumping of Suspension PVC into India. Specifically, China continues to supply PVC at very low prices due to continued weakness in their property sector. While some recent stimulus measures have been announced in China to revive the demand in the property sector, these are yet to see any significant impact on the PVC demand. In Europe and the US, weak domestic demand driven by high interest rates and excess capacity has created surpluses which are targeted at the Indian market, further putting pressure on PVC prices in India.
After a strong Q1, prices dropped significantly in Q2 as the increase in ocean freight corrected much sooner than expected. This, coupled with renewed dumping of Suspension PVC into India, led to sustained pressure on margins. The feedstock VCM price is tracking the downward movement of PVC and trending down. However, the lag effect, as well as the inventory of both finished goods and feedstock, leads to a significant impact on profitability in this current falling market price scenario. In a very positive development earlier this week, provisional anti-dumping duties have been determined on imports of Suspension PVC from China, USA, Indonesia, Thailand, Taiwan, Korea, and Japan. We are hopeful that this would come into effect shortly and effectively address the serious issue of dumping of Suspension PVC into India.
Talking about the segment-wise performance in the second quarter of FY 2025, volumes of the Specialty Chemicals division increased by 13% to 20,961 metric tons on a year-on-year basis. This increase is partially due to the additional 41,000 tons per annum Paste PVC capacity that was commissioned during the fourth quarter of last year. The demand environment for custom manufactured products remains steady. We are on track to achieve a significant growth in FY 2025. Overall, there was a 36% year-on-year increase in the Specialty Chemicals revenue to INR 303 crores. Further, we have signed a new letter of intent with the global agrochemical innovator to supply an advanced intermediate for a new active ingredient. This is the sixth letter of intent that we have signed in the last two years, and the new LOI covers a period of five years.
On a year-on-year basis during Q2, the Value Added Chemicals division saw a 29% growth in volume terms and a 26% increase in revenue terms. Prices of chloromethanes witnessed a good recovery, while caustic soda and hydrogen peroxide prices remained stable. In the Suspension PVC segment, the volume saw a decline of 15% owing to destocking driven by price volatility for the factors that we spoke about. This, however, is a timing issue, and we are confident that the volumes will be made up in the second half of the year. The Custom manufactured chemicals division expansion projects are progressing well with phase II of the new multipurpose production block expected to get commissioned by Q3 of the current year. We have initiated project activities for phase III of the new multipurpose production block and the civil and infrastructure work for the new multipurpose production block.
As we look ahead, though Q3 has begun on a similar note as Q2, the outlook for the rest of Q3 and Q4 appears to be strong. We believe that the industry is going through a transitionary phase, and the road ahead is promising. Now, I would request our CFO, Muralidharan, to share the financial highlights for the quarter and for the six months of the year. Muralidharan.
Thank you, Ramkumar, and a very good morning to all the participants on the call. Talking about the quarterly performance in Q2 FY 2025, the revenue from operations increased marginally on a year-on-year basis to INR 993 crores. Coming to the segment-wise revenue for the quarter, Specialty Chemicals increased by 36% on a year-on-year basis to INR 303 crores, driven by higher sales in custom manufacturing business as well as the revenues from the Cuddalore Paste PVC project, which was commissioned in the Q4 of last year. Value Added Chemicals revenue improved by 26% on a year-on-year basis to INR 161 crores, primarily due to higher caustic soda and hydrogen peroxide volumes. Suspension PVC revenue dropped by 17% on a year-on-year basis to INR 529 crores due to slightly lower prices and lower volumes. In the quarter, gross margin improved by 11% on a year-on-year basis to INR 369 crores.
Increase in employee expenses is primarily due to the impact of new projects which were commissioned last year, strengthening of the R&D and the project team to address the growth requirements, and the regular annual increments which came into effect last quarter. Increase in other expenses is primarily due to higher R&D costs on account of increase in operations due to commissioning of the new projects. We reported an EBITDA of INR 26 crores as against an EBITDA of INR 46 crores in the corresponding quarter last year. Our finance cost for the quarter stood at INR 57 crores. The net loss for the quarter was INR 31 crores as against a net profit of INR 26 crores in Q2 FY 2024.
Moving on to the six months' results, H1 FY 2025 performance was significantly better compared to H1 FY 2024. Revenue from operations increased by 8% on a year-on-year basis to INR 2,138 crores.
Coming to segment-wise revenue during the half year, Specialty Chemicals revenue grew by 49% on a year-on-year basis to INR 654 crores, primarily driven by increase in revenue from custom manufacturing business as well as sales from the Paste PVC project in Cuddalore. Value Added Chemicals revenue again increased by 23% on a year-on-year basis to INR 313 crores, while the Suspension PVC revenue dropped by 9% as compared to the same period during the previous year and stood at INR 1,170 crores. We reported an EBITDA of INR 150 crores, significantly higher than the INR 11 crores reported during H1 of FY 2024, primarily driven by the strong performance in Q1 of the current year. During H1, we reported a net loss of INR 57 crores as against a net loss of INR 38 crores in H1 FY 2024.
We migrated from old tax regime to new tax regime in Chemplast Sanmar Limited, standalone entity, which resulted in reversal of deferred tax liability of INR 65 crores, which is reflected in the financials for the quarter. In CCVL, we had migrated to the new regime. Couple of years back itself. With the commissioning of the phase II of the custom manufacturing project, which is expected in this quarter, and the impact of the recently announced anti-dumping duty on Suspension PVC, the performance is expected to improve significantly in the coming quarters. With respect to the balance sheet as of 30th September 2024, our consolidated net debt stood at INR 851 crores, mainly due to the project loans availed in Chemplast Sanmar Limited. Liquidity position continues to remain strong, with cash and bank balances remaining around INR 670 crores.
With this, we conclude the presentation and open the floor for further discussions.
Steve, can you take this forward, please?
Yes, sir. 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 handset while asking a question. 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, sir, and happy Diwali to the team. I got a few questions. First, let me start with the PVC side of the business.
I'm sorry to interrupt. Mr. Sanjesh, your voice is coming a bit low.
Is it good now?
Yes, yes. Now better.
Yeah, sorry. Hi, Ram. Good morning. So I got a few questions. First, on the PVC, the volumes appear to be significantly lower, while you mentioned in your opening remark that industry volumes remain healthy with 11% growth. What is the reason for us not doing equal to industry and actually volume showing a decline?
Good morning, Sanjay, and happy Diwali to you as well. Because of the extreme pressure on prices due to dumping, what happened was that the lower-priced material that was available got sold first. This is the usual case whenever we face this dumping situation. Therefore, the industry actually built up some inventory during the first half of the year. By the end of September, we did have around 15,000 tons of Suspension PVC in stock. Our production was more or less the same in the first half as compared to last year, so there was not much of a difference. It is just the stock buildup has led to the volumes dropping, and this is something that we will now make up in the second half of the year, especially with the post-monsoon bump up in demand and the impact of the anti-dumping duties that has now been announced.
This also means that we are holding a low-cost inventory, and because of the ADD, the prices can move up, and we can make some gain out of it as well, right, in the second half? That is also a possibility, right?
That's right.
Got it. Second question is on the ADD. On the Paste PVC side, despite such a sharp ADD implementation, we really didn't see material gain in terms of the spreads, and despite demand in India being very robust. What is the learning? It's that if it is not a pan-global ADD that really doesn't have effectiveness for the transition of ADD into a gain for us. And a follow-up question, even in the PVC, it appears that European players don't face any anti-dumping. That window is kept open even in case of Suspension PVC. So can the same situation play out in the Suspension PVC as well?
Okay. Let me explain first what happened on Paste PVC, and then I will address your question on Suspension PVC. As far as Paste PVC is concerned, as soon as that provisional ADD was announced on those five or six countries in the first quarter in June, we did see an immediate impact, and even till date, the dumping from those countries has definitely come down. Unfortunately, the European Union moved into that gap, and they exported at very low prices. As we've been repeatedly saying, as a country, we are not averse to imports coming in because a market would need the material. All we are saying is that they should come in at the fair prices.
Unfortunately, the prices at which the European Union has been exporting the Paste PVC into India post-June 2024 have been at very low levels, and this is really what has kind of negated the impact of the anti-dumping duties that were announced on the other countries. This is something that the industry that we have taken it up with the authorities, and we are hopeful that we would get a good hearing on that. This is not likely to repeat in Suspension PVC, while there could be an increase from the countries that are not covered. The European Union is not as significant a player in Suspension PVC as it is in Paste PVC. Their exports to India over the last few years have been less than 1% so far of the total arrivals.
Even if that increases to some extent, we do not believe that that would be significant.
Just one follow-up there. Sorry, I'm just trying to understand it a little better. Why would a European want to dump the PVC at a lower price now that there is an ADD on all the other? Why are they not taking benefit of it? They can be at a discount, for sure, but why sell at such a low price?
I would not like to speculate on that. That is a question that we are also seeking an answer to, but it is what it is, and therefore we are representing this to the authorities.
In the Suspension PVC, which are the major geographies with the surplus capacity which are kept out of the ADD purview?
There aren't any. Actually, not with the countries on which the ADD is being recommended right now, they're covered around 90% of the import arrivals into India.
That's fair enough. Thanks for all those answers. One, on the bookkeeping side, employee cost in CCVL has gone up by 59%. When I say CCVL, I'm looking at consolidated minus standalone that should be predominantly CCVL. Why did such a sharp inflation in the employee cost for CCVL?
Like I mentioned, I think it's primarily due to the annual regular increments, and also we had some senior-level hires. Both of that contributed.
59%?
Yeah, it's primarily basically the annual increments sort of accumulated, and then that was reflected in the last quarter, and the second is the senior hires we had. Like I said, we had also been strengthening our project team, so all of this contributed to the increase.
That's more a standalone phenomenon, right? Why in the CCVL?
No, in CCVL, we had a senior hire in CCVL. We also had increments which were accumulated, and we had the impact in the last quarter. We may not see the same recurring impact in the next quarter as well, but there is accumulation of the impact for two quarters in the last quarter, and we had a senior hire, and we are also strengthening the project team. All of this contributed to the increase in CCVL. There has been reason for increase in Chemplast as well. Chemplast also had a similar impact of the increments. There has been some strengthening of the project team, R&D team in Chemplast, CMC business team, so there, the reasons are slightly more, and here it's primarily these three specific reasons. We are also planning for growth and planning for succession, as you would well imagine, so.
Okay, okay. That's clear. One last question for Krishna. We have now six LOIs, probably. We are running ahead of what we thought when we started the expansion journey in the CSM business. What are the things that we are doing right? We are winning contracts at such much regular frequency than the peer, larger peer, in fact. What is it that we are doing right, and how big our ambition is now that we are also accelerating the phase III CapEx, right? We are ready to start the phase II, and we have commissioned phase III. That clearly gives an indication that we are looking at a much larger funnel. So what are we doing right, and can there be a surprise to our number of INR 10 billion crore revenue in FY 2027, considering that the acceleration is much better?
Just to clarify, we are commissioning phase II this quarter. Phase III investment was triggered last quarter, and we have started construction. And we have also triggered the next production block, civil construction. So from a project standpoint, that is just want to quickly update. And obviously, all of that is linked to the fact that the pipeline continues to be strong, the engagement continues to be strong. As we updated last quarter, more and more customers are visiting us, auditing the facility because now we do have better capacity to market, which we didn't have, let's say, two or three years back. And that is the reason why there is an increased traction as well as a movement in the pipeline.
And as we had indicated, we are strong and bullish about where this business can go over the next few years, and we will continue to give you an update on how we move forward. And again, it's triggered by the fact that we are going through a continuous cycle of investment in people, investment in assets, by assets, I'm saying lab, pilot, capabilities, investment in production blocks, and again, continue the cycle proactively. So we are going through that cycle on a constant basis.
That's clear, Krishna. But again, do you want to upgrade your INR 10 billion target for FY 2027?
No, Sanjesh, actually, earlier, you would know we had indicated with that first two phases itself, we'll touch the thousand crores. So with the increased investment, we certainly hope that we'll do better than that.
[audio distortion] Maybe don't want to touch the phase III.
The impact of the next phase that we triggered, that project is another 12-18-month timeline for that to come on, for the capacity to be available. So the steady state impact of that will be a little bit farther out, actually.
Very clear. Very clear. Thanks, Ram, Krishna Kumar, taking these questions so patiently and answering them well. Thank you very much, and best of luck.
Thank you, Sanjesh.
Thank you. Participants who wish to ask a question may press star and one. The next question is from the line of Meghna Agarwal from Mount Intra Finance . Please go ahead.
Hello. Hi, good morning. Happy Diwali. Am I audible?
Yes, please.
I just wanted to note that in the last phone call, we got to know that we'll be commissioning the phase II by Q2 FY 2025, but now the timeline has changed to quarter three of FY 2025 for the custom manufacturing. Any specific reasons for it?
No, actually, Krishna here. Actually, no material change itself. The asset is ready. We are just going through the motions of ramping up the production of a new product. So there is really no delay per se from a commissioning standpoint. It's just the qualification of the new product is taking its own course. So as we speak, there are trials underway and testing of the equipment and things like that. So no material changes per se.
Okay. Thank you and just one more question that we are also having the phase III of 910 MTPA project, so any update by when can we expect the commissioning?
Phase III was triggered because we needed to find capacity to put in some of the projects that we are working on in the pipeline. In fact, one of them is linked to the LOI that we announced recently in yesterday's release. The timeline, we will come back to you on that. Again, it's an extension to the current production block, but we will have to put the civil structure and then put in the equipment. It would take at least, let's say, a minimum of five to six quarters for that to be fully commissioned. At that point, that asset will be ready for commercial products.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Archit Joshi from B&K Securities. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning, sir, and see you in the meeting to all of you. Sir, I'm just trying to understand this entire circumvention and conduits that China has found with respect to dumping of Paste PVC. We obviously mentioned on the previous call that Europe and Japan were some of the sources from where we started seeing a very high level of imports coming in. But when the anti-dumping duty was announced, I think there was only one source from Europe, which was Norway, which was importing roughly around 2,500 tons of Paste PVC in India. And now with the Suspension PVC ADD coming in, what are the chances? I think the previous participant also was having the same issue that there are no more places from which China can sort of route these materials into India.
Is this a phenomenon that China or Chinese companies are finding that there's an excess capacity to bypass these anti-dumping duties? Newer geographies are being explored to sort of vent out all the higher output that they have into India or maybe in other countries. What measures can we take proactively on this account is something that I wanted to ask.
First of all, in our product, we haven't seen that circumvention by routing it through other countries so far. So what has happened in Paste PVC is not because China is routing it through Europe. It is just that the European producers have increased their exports to India at these low prices, and that is a separate event that we are working to address. So this is not anything to do with the routing or the rerouting of the product from China into India. As far as Suspension PVC is concerned, like I said, when I responded to Sanjesh as well, 90% of the total imports of Suspension PVC into India, those sources have been covered under this anti-dumping notification that has just come out this week. So we are confident that this should address this very serious issue of dumping in a very effective manner.
Obviously, we will keep an eye out on any attempt to circumvent, and we would be alert to that. There are provisions in the regulations in terms of minimum value add, etc. So I think those are all ways in which we will have to try and see how to manage the circumvention. But we haven't seen that happen yet.
All right. Got it. Got it, sir. Sir, a second one on the custom manufactured business. Firstly, congratulations for the sixth LOI. Sir, I think all of these LOIs have been signed towards Agrochem, either advanced intermediates or active ingredients. Sir, can you help us explain the kind of customers that we are dealing with? Have we diversified on the customer's account that there are maybe one or two innovators in this entire LOI signing that has gone through over the last maybe couple of years? Also on the industries, I mean, I think as far as I recall, we were also keen to have some CMO-related queries and work to be done in other industries than agro. Have we made any inroads maybe in pharma or maybe in some other industrial chemicals?
Just if you can explain on the strategy front what we are thinking to maybe cross this thousand crore mark with these six LOIs and maybe a few more to come?
Okay. On the LOIs and the current projects that we are working on in the agrochemical side, our goal is to definitely diversify. And even in the LOIs, we have announced it is with multiple innovators in the AgChem space. And similarly, what we have in the pipeline, where some of them do not result in an LOI, even there, we have a diversity of customer base from an AgChem standpoint. So that continues to be a priority and focus for us. And as I indicated in the earlier conversation with Sanjesh, we have had customer visits over the last quarters. We call some of these are actually audits of the facility because the first qualification hurdle before anyone decides to do some serious work with you is for the site to pass a safety or a SHE, a safety and environmental audit.
And so we have had some success on that front as well, which is the reason we continue to make some good progress in diversifying the customer base in the AgChem side. And again, our intent is to also diversify beyond AgChem, but that's a little bit longer-term process. And so we are working on areas other than agrochemical, such as what you had outlined in pharma and other fine chemical space. We will continue to monitor these and update you as we go along, as we make some good progress in the development of these pipeline molecules.
Sure, sir. Thanks for that. I just have one more. Given that, let's say, in this quarter, we might have already commissioned and maybe could have also started commercial sales from the phase II of the expansion. How do you see FY 2026 in terms of utilization? If you can just broadly outline your thoughts, maybe if you could guide something on that account. Thank you.
Phase I continues to ramp up from a utilization standpoint. Phase II is getting commissioned as we speak, and there will be a ramp-up. Again, unlike a continuous process industry or a Cuddalore business, the ramp-up will take time because these are new products you are launching in a new asset. And so there will be a learning curve both from a customer standpoint and from the supplier standpoint. So I anticipate a good capacity utilization of the Phase I asset by next year. And the Phase II will take another 12 months-18 months after commissioning this quarter to get to a point of good utilization. But all of that is factored in our projections for the next few years.
Sure, sir. Thank you. Wish you all the best.
Thanks.
The next question is from the line of Bharat Sheth from Quest Investment Advisors. Please go ahead.
Hi, fellows. Good morning, and thank you for the opportunity. Coming to again, this is the same question of either Paste PVC or Suspension PVC regarding both products. If you can give us some more color on the global demand supply situation and Suspension PVC, as you rightly said, that 90% of the country are covered. So which are the 10% is not covered? And second, some of the projects which have been announced in the Suspension PVC. So how do we see overall scenario after a couple of years in the Suspension PVC?
Okay. Suspension, the countries that are not covered, the 10% that are not covered would be countries in South America, largely Colombia. You could have a little bit from Mexico as well and North America, and then Europe to Europe is around 1% of the total arrivals into India, so countries in Europe would also be there. There are sporadic arrivals from the Middle East and Turkey, so those are the kind of countries that are not covered, so like I said, 90% is covered, and one producer in Korea is not covered. So that is really where we are. As far as the demand for Suspension PVC globally is concerned, it is around 48 million-49 million tons. The global capacity is around 60 million tons. Actually, it's a two-speed world. India is growing at around 8%, and that can actually grow even faster. It only depends on availability.
And the other high growth rate countries or regions are Southeast Asia and the Middle East, North Africa region. They grow at around 3%, 4% or 5%. The rest of the world, that is the Western world, the US, Europe, even Northeast Asia, they are all growing at anywhere from flat 0% to around 2% or at best 3%. So this is the rate of growth as far as Suspension PVC is concerned around the world. There are two factors that could increase the demand growth in two of the main areas. One is in the United States. The falling interest rates could spur the demand growth for PVC in India as their home building will then again start growing. And China's demand could come back with the stimulus measures that I believe are the most stimulus measures that are on the cards.
If that works, then there could be a revival of the housing sector, and then the demand there could grow. There could also be a question on the carbide PVC capacity because there is a Minamata Convention which regulates the usage of mercury. The carbide PVC capacities in China use mercury as a catalyst. There could be a rationalization of capacity as well in China. All of that could bring the supply demand situation on Suspension PVC into balance globally. In India, there is a huge shortage. Supply is around 1.5 million tons right now, whereas the demand is around 4 million tons in 2023, 2024. That is expected to grow to as much as 4.5 million tons in this year.
I mean, in India also, there are a couple of plant projects that have been announced, which are likely to come up in the next two- to three-year time frame. So how do we see India's demand supply?
Not a problem at all because the 4.5 million tons demand this year, even assuming that expansions come in three years' time, and we are talking about 8%-10% growth every year in India, we are talking about another 1.25 million-1.5 million tons of demand being added, so your demand would easily go up from 4.5 million-6 million tons, and these new capacities, even if they come in, would still leave a gap of around 2.5 million tons, so I think India is well-positioned as far as PVC is concerned.
Coming to Paste PVC, since we have a fully backward integrated plant, our old plant is fully backward integrated. Hello?
Yeah. Yes, please.
So in that scenario, how much we are competitive vis-à-vis other players, I mean, countries? And once upon a time, we were, I mean, claiming that we are the most efficient. But still, we are, I mean, struggling on the Paste PVC side. So how do we see, and which are the countries we see that there could be an import threat is there?
If the imports, if the trade is on a fair basis, then we are still competitive. If the exports to India are not on a fair basis, where they are using either government subsidies, and like for instance, some of the countries, one large country in Asia, or if they are cross-subsidizing exports by having very high domestic prices and then selling the exports at very low prices, those kind of unfair practices is what makes us less competitive. But on a fair basis, we are as competitive as anybody else. In fact, as compared to Europe, we would be in a far better competitive position.
Is it fair understanding that still dumping from Europe and Japan is continuing?
It is. That is what, as a domestic industry, that is exactly what we are representing.
Is it possible to share some spread on the Paste PVC current spread and the Paste PVC and Suspension PVC?
Sure. If you want to know, you want the input numbers?
No spread. Spread in the Q2 and current spread?
Yeah. Q2, the contribution numbers were roughly around INR 24,000 crore.
And the Paste PVC?
The Paste contribution would include the input cost. It also includes all other conversion costs, power, fuel, utilities, all conversion costs included. The number was around INR 24,000 crore.
And Suspension PVC, sir?
Suspension PVC was around INR 7,200 crore.
Okay. Thank you and all the best.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Ankur Periwal from Axis Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, sir. Thanks for the opportunity. Just on the anti-dumping duty and the earlier quality norms that were supposed to get imposed on the input side, what's the status on those quality norms? Because there were some news articles suggesting that they have further deferred. What are the timelines that you are looking at for the same?
Yeah. So as you're on multiple products, not just in the chemical industry, but the government of India has embarked on setting up mandatory quality standards for many products in many industries, be it construction, chemicals, electronics, what have you. And they come up with these mandatory quality standards, and they announce a particular date by which it becomes mandatory. And this goes through the process of WTO compliance and so on. So in this process for PVC as well, a standard was made mandatory. And the original date for implementation was, if I remember right, August, sometime in August. It has got extended by another four months to the end of December. And that is where the situation is right now.
Sure, and large part of the inputs that we are seeing from China in terms of dumping will be falling under the low-micron-based supplies. Will that be fair understanding?
I'm sorry. Could you repeat that? Could you say that again?
So because of these quality standards, the low-grade inputs will get impacted, which is where large part of China's inputs are there. Will that be a fair understanding?
All I can say is that so long as the exporting producers, every plant needs to be visited, inspected, and certified by the BIS officials. And whoever is able to demonstrate that the product made in that particular plant is meeting the quality standard, then they are certified, and then they can export to India. We are not aware of how many plants have been certified and inspected in this process. So I would not be able to comment on your question with certainty. But broadly, we do believe that certain export sources will fail to meet the standards. This is our understanding.
Okay. Sure. Secondly, on the supply side globally, given the carbide argument was valid probably two, three years back as well, but have we seen any capacity shutdowns or maybe deferment in some capacity additions? Because as I understand, there were some capacity expansion across PVC, across the world that were being planned. So is there any capacity shutdown either in Europe or in China or some deferment in additions?
There have been a few small plants that have been shut down here and there. And at least new expansions, even in China, are not coming up in the carbide route. They are largely the ethylene route. So I think the carbide route in China is phasing out. The large-scale rationalization of carbide capacity in China is yet to happen. And that is sometimes the and there is a hard stop on the mining of mercury by 2031. Somewhere before that, an alternative has to be found. Or if an alternative is not found, then there will be some repercussions on the capacity.
Okay. But no deferment for the earlier expansion plans, which was in the U.S., in China, etc. So no deferment there?
They are slowing down. We are seeing a slowdown in any announcements on new capacities coming up. There could be another couple of million tons of capacity coming in over the next year or year and a half, but nothing new is being announced.
Sure, and lastly, your thoughts on the pricing side or even the demand-supply side for chlorine, utility costs, etc., compared to recent?
So here's chlorine utility and caustic. Again, we do have a situation where the domestic capacity in India is more than the demand in India. In chlorine utilities, it is still manageable, and we believe that in a year or so, this will get balanced out. This is largely because of some new capacities that came up. We would have these new capacities being sleeved into the market, and the demand will rise to meet that. Maybe in a year, it will catch up. So in the meantime, there could be some exports happening out of India. The caustic situation would be a little more in terms of the size of the problem because already the capacity on caustic is around over 6 million tons, whereas the demand is only around 4.5 million tons.
But not all caustic plants run at 100% capacity because around 70% or more of the caustic plants in India are not integrated into chlorine. We are 100% integrated, but others are not. And those plants can only operate to the extent that they can evacuate or sell the chlorine. So while the capacity on the nameplate capacity is 6.3 million tons, that's really not. I think the production is closer to around 5 million tons, and India is exporting around 500,000 tons. So from a net importer, India has become a net exporter of caustic in the last couple of years.
So pricing-wise, in fact, we were also expected to defer in the time between the second demand to include the markets.
I'm sorry, you're not very clear. Could you say that again, please?
Sorry. I was saying, so the pricing-led impact, the positive pricing or the pricing uptake in caustic, it doesn't look likely in the near term. Let's say within the next one and a half years.
All right. So on pricing, actually, caustic internationally has gone up because internationally, there has been a little bit of a revival from the demand side, be it on paper, be it on alumina, and also, caustic is a major component of a lot of these EV battery elements, the mining and the refining of nickel and so on, so in all of that, caustic is used, so there is a reasonable demand growth in caustic, and prices internationally have been moving up. India also has seen a little bit of an improvement in prices in the second half of this year from October. So prices are pretty stable, stable to a little strong.
Okay. Great. That's it from my side. Thank you and all the best.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Chintan Shah from JM Financial. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Thank you so much for the opportunity. So I just had one question. So on the Suspension PVC, basically, so when FY 2019 to 2022, when we were making healthy margins, what were the spreads on Suspension PVC? And you mentioned that in Q2, the spreads were somewhere around 7,200. Now, assuming that the ADD that has been talked about gets implemented, then what should the spreads look like?
Okay. So between 2019 to 2022, I think we should exclude the two COVID years because in the two COVID years, our spreads were really very high. That was the time when PVC prices moved up to above $1,500, and VCM prices were also low. We had spreads of around $400-$450 between PVC and VCM. So we should exclude that. But that will definitely be seen, the entire purpose of anti-dumping is to correct the wrong that has been done and to address the unfair impact on prices. So definitely, the implementation of anti-dumping will result in an increase in price and therefore on margins. How much it will go up by, only time will tell?
But all I can say is that if you look at the weighted average of the anti-dumping duties that have been announced, that weighted by the volumes of inputs that have come in from the respective countries, it would amount to around $100 to $110. So that is just an indicative number. The actual impact on prices, we can only wait and watch.
Okay. But can you just highlight the spreads that we used to make then? I mean, excluding the COVID two years, what was the average spreads that we used to make normalized basis?
Around INR 15,000. If you look at the last, maybe if you're looking at a 10-year average, we would be making we would have made somewhere between $240-$250 per ton PVC- VCM. That is the industry spread I'm talking about.
Okay. Got it. So is it fair to say that even if this spreads increased, let's say, basis what you're mentioning, $110, so we would be very close to the historical average that we used to make?
Let's wait and watch. I wouldn't like to be presumptuous in this and try to go ahead of what is going to happen, ahead of reality. I think the market will settle at some level. It could be higher than that. Let's wait and see.
Okay. Got it. Understood. Thank you so much. That's all from my side.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question for today's conference call. I would like to hand the conference over to the management for their closing comments.
Thank you, Steve. Thank you, everyone, for joining us today on this earnings call. We appreciate your interest in Chemplast Sanmar Limited. And if you have any further queries, please do contact SGA, our investor relations advisor. Have a good day.
On behalf of Chemplast Sanmar Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines.