Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to Coramandel International Limited 1Q FY 'twenty six post results conference call. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in 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 0 on your touch tone phone. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Manish Mahabad. Thank you, over to you, sir.
Thank you, Bhavya. On behalf of Anti Stock Broking, warm welcome to all the participants on the 1Q FY 'twenty six earnings call of Coromantel International. Today, we have mister Sankara Subramanian as managing director and CEO, doctor Raghuram Devarakonda, executive director, CPC, Bioproducts and Retail. Mr. Deepak Nitrajan, CFO on the call.
Without further ado, I would like to hand over Sadrasham Aniam for opening remarks, over which he will open the floor for Q and A. Thank you and over to Mr. Sadrasham.
Thanks, Manish.
Good afternoon, everyone. I'll give a brief on the overall business environment that we experienced during the year followed by company's performance and thereafter we can take your questions. On the additional sales scenario after nearly onset of Southwest Monsoon in May, country as a whole received the above normal range during the first half of the current season. As of late, we have received 105% of the long period average rainfall. While regional variation exists, there has been good recovery, especially over the last fortnight and overall efficiency scenario remains positive.
In fact, All India improvement is almost 5% over the long period average. During the month of June, there has been some mismatch in the rainfall distribution, especially in the certain states that has really caught on in the last two weeks. The supply capacities are also up from 38% last year to 61% up to last week and the healthy levels across all regions. The South, which is a key market for Coromandel, 70% of the capacity has been reached in the current year as compared to 48% of last year, giving promising outlook for the crop growing. As well, healthy crop regulators happened so far, moved up by 4%.
By coming specific to individual crops, rice has grown by 13 and coarse seed yields by 14%. There has been a negative growing in cotton and oilseeds. So overall, we have received we have achieved so far 70,000,000 crop growing as against the curry volume of overall 109,000,000 hectares, which sold 70% of the growing 75%. On the policy trends, the government has provided strong support of farm income through increased minimum support prices for tariff 2025 and direct income transfer schemes such as PM Krishnan, H. U.
Bodhasa, Anadhasa, Sikibawa. So all these are all progressing as planned. Cabinet has recently approved Dandan Kushiyodhana scheme to focus on improving incomes in 100 districts having low productivity, cropping intensity and credit disbursements through improvement in crop diversification, post harvest storage, irrigation infra and credit taxes. During the quarter, the government approved the continuation of the modified interest sublimation scheme. Under the scheme, apart from 1.5% of interest sublimation provided to eligible lending institutions, farmers making strong prepayment of loans will be eligible for additional incentive thereby reducing their interest rate on KCC loan to 4%.
Specific to fertilizer policy, government has been ensuring adequate availability of DAP, has been engaging with the various global players, a government delegation visited Saudi recently and secured long term supply of close to 3,100,000 tonnes for the next few years. This will be extremely useful as India imports close to 5,000,000 to 6,000,000 tonnes of DAP. Sensing the importance of DAP requirements, the Government has also came up with additional compensation for DAP beyond certain threshold levels, just announced in the early part of Karif, and that is likely to continue for the second quarter as well. On the industry performance, all key raw materials witnessed firmness in Q1. Process for sales like DAP continued to climb as continued absence of Chinese and lesser supply from Russia has significantly tightened the market supply for DAP.
And there's been a shortfall in supplies in China so far that has been made up from suiting DAP from rest of the world. In line with increase in global prices of DAP and also India's safer price of DAP. Positive prices also significantly gone up from $11.53 dollars we had in Q1, less than concluded at $12.58 for Q2. Domestic phosphatic industry registered strong quarter, driven by improved sentiment, improved consumption of fertilizers has gone up by 9% to $4,500,000 Early months in arrival, lower level of inventory and higher towing contributed to this improved consumption trend. NPK segment continued to grow well and contributed 65% share in the overall sales.
The last year's trend of increased demand for NPK replacing DAP. August well for India, yesterday continued the fact NPK provides a balanced nutrition much required for the crop as against supplying DAP. On the supply side, production in port of cosmetics were up by 5%, 9%. Production continued to remain healthy at 37 lakh tonnes for the quarter for DAP and NPK. It's a lot of effort from industry as well as from the government.
The import of DAP managed to move up in the last few weeks. And the first quarter witnessed 19 lakh tonnes as against last year 17.6 lakh tonnes. Overall, the primary sales has gone up by 9% at the industry level, mainly driven by NPNPC, which has grown by 34% from NOK 22 lakhs to 29 lakhs, whereas DAP registered degrowth. This indicates the former preference for balanced nutrition and the charges they have made depending on the availability. In spite of the fact that DAP pricing continues to remain low as against higher in PK pricing.
It's heartening to note that single super phosphate has witnessed robust growth of 25%, moving up from 9.8 to 12.2 lakh cents, and the urea remains at a marginal increase of 12% over the last year. Potash consumption as primary sales have moved up, but imports came down considerably due to delay in price negotiation, which was subsequently settled at a very competitive pricing comparison to China price and that assumes supply of potash in the coming months. While the import for the first quarter is lower at 71%, consumption moved up by 46% to 4.65%. Coming to agrochemicals. Globally, there has been a reduction in the channel inventory compared to last year.
Pricing pressure on certain molecules has improved compared to last year, but still pricing persists in the current year as well. But however, favorable monsoon conditions in the domestic market really aided in widespread spraying coverage across the region, generating demand for crop protection. With the overall buoyancy in the marketplace, farmers have started returning to high end products like specialty fertilizers, bioproducts, which has been excellent during this quarter. Coming to company's performance during this quarter. Our performance has been seen in the context of overall environment.
Due to early onset of monsoon, the increased demand and crop sowing improved the demand for the agri inputs, whether it's fertilizer or specialties and organic. But at company level, the performance across business segments has been quite healthy, mainly driven by operational excellence, procurement efficiencies and very effective marketing communication. Our plants operated at full capacity of 8.4 lakh tonnes in Q1, consisting 6% volume growth. We continue to operate our newly commissioned sulphuric acid plant at 100% plus capacity utilization and our phosphoric acid volumes were also up by 23%. Lot of digital analytics intervention, improving the uptime of our plants in both Vizag and Kakinada was really helpful in increasing the throughput efficiency conversion cost reduction, and the company has been leveraging effectively digital tools to manage and maintain operational effectiveness in their plants.
The production of NPK DAP moved up from 7.88 to 8.37 lakhs, registering growth of 6%. Phosphoric acid moved up by 23% during this quarter with the resumption of ENU plant also coming back on track. As you all know, we announced backward integration projects of phosphorus and sulphuric acid, and the project is progressing well and almost we have completed 70% of the project milestone in terms of machinery as well as civil construction. The plant is likely to be commissioned in Q4 of this current financial year. The Company's rock phosphate project at BMCC has significantly increased its throughput and has separated its operations and helping in meeting Company's stock requirement.
As you all know, the Company is currently holding 53.8% stake in the Baobab Mining Company at Senegal, and yesterday, Board has approved increasing the stake by additional 17.7% to reach 71.5%. Operation Senegal is of extreme importance for the new plant, which is coming up at Kartinada, where we plan to use Senegal rock meeting 40% of the new plant requirements. So we feel the improved operational efficiency at Senegal and increase the throughput in the coming years will help us to secure at least captive rock sourcing close to 25% of our annual requirements. Our granulation project that is expected to add 7.5 lakh tonnes of additional capacity is on track and is likely to be commissioned in 'twenty six, 'twenty seven seven, 'twenty eight. To support this company, setting up a bagging facility also, which will help in reducing operational costs and facilitate smooth movement of the goods.
During this quarter, as you all know, the government has signed a long term agreement with margin of Saudi Arabia, a leading fertilizer player, mainly to secure DAP shipments. We have also been contracting ammonia equipment for our operations at Car Canada. On the marketing trend, Coromandel achieved record primary sales volume of Gramal Accent, marking a 31% growth and established itself as a leading marketer of software liquidators in the country with an improved market share of close to 18% on the NPK segment. Share of unique rates, which differentiates us from the rest of the players, stand at 34%, improved from last year level of 31%. Continue to expand in Central And Northern India, aligning with our strategy to divest the market and prepare ourselves for the upcoming increase in capacity.
The POS consumption improved by 46% during this quarter to ZAR7.10, reflecting improved form level engagement activities and a favorable agreement. The market share on the consumption basis has improved to 16% as compared to 12% of last year, With the better price realization on the rabid produce, the market collection for the business has been quite robust. And also, are happy to note that the government has been prompt in settling the subsidy deals as well. ACC business has recorded a volume growth of 20% to 1.9 lakh 10 with special focus on differentiated products, which are unique to Coromandel, a tariff which has reached 37%. We've also been persisting with our drone strain services under the brand of Bromo Drive.
And in first quarter, we have covered 25,000 acres. The initiative received highly encouraging response from the farming community, we are planning to double the fleet price of drones by procuring them from Teksha and we hope to reach at least 5,000,000 acres of drone spraying in the current year. Coromandel is taking this initiative more to provide comprehensive solution to the farming community, at the same time, helping preserving the water as drone strain can cut down water requirement by almost one tenth, 90% can be cut down and can be reduced to one tenth of the total quarter otherwise required per AECO. The Health and Nutrition business as a company had a strong quarter, registering volume growth of 12%, while organic fertilizer volume has improved by 29%. Our nano DAP business has made a good progress, and we have been very, very systematic in creating awareness campaigns across India, carried out a lot of field demos, presented the research institute drive themselves to the farmers, generating the demand from their side.
And our focus has been to educate the farmers to adopt this product or partial substitution of DAP, which is also not available in adequate volumes. Going forward, the business aims to broaden its portfolio from institutional cartridges and tap into export markets as well to enhance its market presence. The company is also looking at diversifying the product portfolio by looking at nano NPKs as well. The company has also launched Nano Urea through its retail outlets during this quarter and will continue to responsibly educate the farmers in appreciating the user efficiency of this technology. During the quarter, the Coromandel signed a definitive agreement to form a joint venture with Sakharini Plaster for the manufacture sale of manufacturing sale of Hakpo Gypsum based Green Building Materials.
This JV enables synergies in adjacent areas by converting its industrial byproduct Gypsum into value added construction material. Trop Protection and Oil segments of the company delivered robust set of numbers in Q1, revenue growing up by 31% to INR $7.23 crores and EBIT moved up by 77% to 111 crores. In exports, we brought in differentiation in terms of our macro grip margins, volumes, target market and has received very good response in major consuming markets as the demand for the product has moved up due to its extension on May 12. Domestic market benefited from the early monsoon arrival that resulted in growth across B2B and B2C segments. Business introduced 10 new products during the quarter, including one in licensing product.
We continue to focus on increasing the share of new products. Overall, three insecticides, three herbicides, three bioproducts and one PDRs were launched, including one in licensing and three ninety three formulations. On the in licensing product, Nipenpyram is a global acclaimed, second person in license from one of our strategic partners. We'll continue to drive this business, and we have also started focusing more intensely on the domestic formulation segment and expanded our geographies by significantly improving our presence in additional 40 territories and also increasing our field strength. All this will play in the next coming quarters in terms of the increased share of our domestic formulation business.
On the Bio business, there has been a revival in demand for the Bio business sales in the global markets, especially from U. S, and they continue to receive the orders from Europe for this bioproduct. But the business has been focusing on divesting the portfolio beyond need based, and they are in the various stages of resisting the new product Microbial. And the business has also created a separate marketing team as it involves concept selling to educate the farming community to adopt the bioproducts. And we are also working on manufacturing partnerships with the global players for manufacturing the products in India.
In July 2025, Parliamentary received the Competition Commission approval for the newly acquired Nagarjuna and is awaiting SEBI clearance to launch open offer. Once we get the approval, we'll conclude the transaction of buying out the promoter stake and complete the acquisition formalities including open offer. It's improved liquidity and market sentiment. Business is doing well and is trying to realize synergy benefits envisaged earlier at the time of acquisition. On the Retail business, the business has reported strong performance in Q1 with growth in revenue and profitability across various segments.
73 new stores were opened during the quarter and business is on track to increase its store count by adding 400 stores during the year. The business is enhancing its customer outreach through instant e commerce and digital platforms and be the only player to make a door delivery of key every input products besides providing training services. With that initial remarks, I will hand over to Deepa to take you through the company's financial performance. Over to you, Deepa.
Thank you, Shankar.
Good afternoon, everyone. The company recorded a consolidated total income of INR 7,126 crores during the quarter versus INR 4,783 crores registered in Q1 of last year, registering a growth of 49%. The increase in revenues has been mainly on account of higher subsidiary rates and volume growth across all our business segments. The subsidy share of the business stands at 83% during the quarter compared to 81% in the previous year same quarter. In terms of profitability, the consolidated EBITDA for the quarter stands at $7.82 crores against $5.00 6 crores in the previous year, registering a growth of 55%.
The increase in EBITDA is driven mainly by volume growth, higher subsidy rates and margin expansion in crop protection and all the other businesses. Profitability share of subsidy business stands at 68% during the quarter. In terms of subsidy, during the quarter, the company received rupees 1,300 crores towards subsidy claims from the government compared to $9.87 crores in the previous quarter. Government has been prompt in clearing the subsidy dues. As of today, we have received our subsidy claims till June.
The subsidy outstanding as at quarter end June 30 was 2,911 crores. In terms of Forex, during q one, the rupee traded in a range of 83.76 to 86.91 rupees to a dollar. CoreMandel continues to follow a prudent and a conservative approach of hedging our forex exposure, and that has immensely helped in limiting the impact of currency volatility. Thank you for your interest in CorMandel. Looking forward to your interactions. Thank you.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press and one on your touch tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press and 2. Participants are requested to use handsets when 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 Prashant Biani from Pilara Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah.
Thank you for the opportunity. Sir, congrats on great set of numbers, and congrats on being elected the cochairman of FAI. Sir, my first question is on the China specialty fertilizer ban. Do we have plans to start manufacturing specialty fertilizer in a big way in India and capture the market leadership here as well? And secondly, on rare earth minerals, do we have any plans to enter the space of rare earth mineral extraction?
Thank you.
Very insightful, Pudin. Both are very, very relevant. Very fully concerned on the supply of raw materials for ethylene business and evaluating opportunities of creating capacity. As a first listed player in terms of the infrastructure, our ability to reuse the products which are generated out of this are quite helpful.
And we are evaluating the investment to create capacities internally for our captive consumption as well as it provides the opportunity for us to export Europe to Europe and various other NPK players globally and also to meet the domestic demand of the rest of the players in the country. We are seriously evaluating. We will soon hear something as and when the proposal gets classified. On the rare earth minerals, we have not applied our mind at this point of time. In fact, we will see the very we're trying to focus ourselves maybe on the opposite base derivatives.
We are not looking at the exact number at this moment.
Sure. Sir, your view on what could be the India subsidy for h two, not the number, but directionally how it could be because internationally, we are seeing the prices have been going up.
Logically, subsidy should go up.
Right.
And sir, on the MCC, what is the current output and how much do we plan to scale it up to? Our earlier plans were to scale it up to 5 lakh, but do we plan to scale it further beyond 5 lakh and by then?
If everything goes well this year, 2526, you know, two, three months of rainy season, we don't operate. Rest of the month, we should come closer to 300,000 to 400,000 tonnes per annum, which is a very remarkable achievement being the first year of capacity. We are reaching 100%.
Hopefully, we should double it in the next two years. We can do it with not much significant investment required. We'll try and focus on it.
Sure, sir. Thank you so much for your time.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of from Arvindis Fox. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you for opportunity, sir. So first question from the gas market. So this crisis has been there for some time. Do we see any incremental supply now in some of the global players, how this could change Sorry to interrupt, sir.
Sir, your voice is not clear.
I hope I'm audible now.
Yes.
Yes, sir.
Hello. Yeah.
Yeah. So the question is on the DApp market. This is being tight for some time now. So do we see in the next six months or nine months any major supply that could come from global players by adding capacity or anything that could change in this market that could be so that we can develop global supply or the existing prices can continue for some more time?
China is one of the major source for India in the last few years, completely dried up this current year.
So that is creating the demand for a mismatch. But we are confident that from Middle East, sources increased volumes can come through and make up for the volume drop from China, and that should continue use the situation. While there can be a timing mismatch going forward with the capacity expansion happening in Middle East, we are reasonably confident we should not face any challenge on DAP availability going forward. And domestically, the companies are also creating capacity, which will come up on stream in the next two years. And with a stable policy and the reasonable market price and also the inclination of the farmers to make a switch from DAP to NTK, this will get balanced out.
And also globally, commodity prices are not going to go up for various reasons. And I don't see any reason why for India alone DAP price should go up. I have a strong view. If appetite for DAP for the forthcoming Rabi seasons are met, DAP prices should soften from thereon.
Got it, sir.
So second question is on the margin. So we earlier had guided, I mean, in terms of our expectation around the manufactured margins of around 5 ks per ton. Updated thoughts on that, that's the first part. Second, in the current quarter, quarter gone by Q1, I mean, was the impact of sulfur sulfuric acid prices directionally? Because I think in Q4, were alluded because sulfur prices being higher at close to $300 So how did things change on a you know, quarter on quarter basis and how things stand today?
I mean, are you seeing sulfur market easing out a bit or still it continues to remain tight? That's the second part. Third part of the margin question is just, as you mentioned, forecasted prices have gone up. Does this warrant a price rise from our side to maintain margins what we are looking out for FY 'twenty?
In respect of sulfuric acid price, it continues to remain firm.
Sulfuric acid is around $120 and sulfur prices peak to $300 plus started softening now, has come down to $225 So we do hope that sulphur prices have reached the peak and can only come down from here on. So this is our view on sulphur and sulphuric acid. On the manufactured margin, our normative EBITDA of metric ton of 5,000 will sustain during this year. That's our hope and we'll strive to do that. In terms of the phosphoric acid price change, it's in line with the global commodity prices, especially DAP increase.
And this may warrant some correction in certain NPK grades because we should be aware of the fact that both phosphoric acid and potash has gone up during this quarter. So that may warrant some correction in NPNPK grade, which industry has been taking and will continue to take. Of course, DAP price change on account of DAP phosphoric acid and imported DAP prices will be compensated in the form subsidy. That's what we foresee at this point of time.
Thank you sir, one small clarification.
So this sulphur sulphur sulphuric acid impact on a Q o Q basis, it would have been a negative impact Sorry to interrupt sir, sir, your audio quality is not clear. No. Sorry. I just one small clarification, sir, regarding the sulfur sulfuric acid impact in the quarter. Compact of q four, it would have had a a negative impact because prices have gone up. Just directionally, just one to understand.
Yeah. It has impacted the values up on captive phosphoric acid because we consume sulfur to produce sulfuric acid, which is used for sulfuric acid and imported sulfuric acid prices also gone up. So the extent there has been a marginal reduction in the value addition. But with sulfuric acid going up again, the value gap will widen further going next quarter as well.
And also our procurement efficiency of long term contracts, some of the formulas are slightly different from spot purchases. We are fairly regulated in terms that's what I mentioned in my opening remarks as well on the procurement efficiency. So we have been managing it quite well.
Sure sir. Thanks a
Thank you. The next question is from the line of from Oracle Capital Service. Please go ahead.
Thank you for the opportunity sir. So my question was on the, like, is using different rate of phosphate crop to produce phosphate. So I just wanted to understand that, does it impact the conversion conversion conversion rate of block to asset current block to asset? And what is the, like, what is the current conversion of block to exit? And, like, as we, like, in the annual report also, like, we are doing research on, like, how to do you need that different data of block.
So does that it has improved our conversion rate or conversion of drop through asset has improved over the five years? Just wanted to know that.
Good question. Incremental is differentiation, rest of the player in the industry mainly by focusing on sourcing rock from multiple sources. So at any point of time, we have four by grades of rocks and four by grades of acid we use in our plant, driven by the necessity because our volume is going up, our demand for acid goes up.
And that is where our pilot plant adviser came handy in terms of trying out various blends of rock and different proportion and different P2O3 content. And the new plant which is coming up in Patanaray is also being designed to handle low grade rock and the metallurgy of the machineries are accordingly tuned to handle low grade rock. Once we design it for low grade rock, the higher dispersion can give better throughput. So this has been taken care of and that's the core strength of Coromandan. At any point at time, we use more than three grades of rock to produce without compromising on the output, without compromising on the quality.
And that's the enhanced R and D we focus on and trying to maintain and sustain our value preference for Ferric acid.
And like, can you give us the, like, what is the current conversion rate? Like, how much rock we require to produce at least, like, blended, just wanted additional?
Roughly, you can take around three point five to three point one seconds of rock may be required, but they're not as rate. And that depends on the P2OF content.
Suppose if we use low grade, it may go to four, four point two five tons. If we use high grade, it will come to 3.25. On a blended basis, you can take this sort of number.
Okay. Thank you so much, sir.
And my next question was on the, like, has a largest network among the. So I just wanted to know that what is our, like, the port group in our. And, like, as I have met the, like, the. He said that, like, now is shifting to direct delivery direct delivery to Farmers. So, like, conversion is, like, from the last five years.
So, like, is there any cost improvement or this cost savings from direct delivery to Farmers?
I didn't understand the first part of it. Can you please repeat the first part of the question initially?
So, like, Coromandan is the largest airport network, like, depot network over here in India.
Uh-uh. Okay. Retail network, sir.
Okay.
No. Are you talking about retail network?
No. Depot. Depot. Depot.
Yeah.
No. The does your query on the door delivery, we started this initiative in the current last two quarters. We have been doing it. We ensure that the farmers get delivery of the product, like an urban consumer. And this is started in a pilot scale that's picking up momentum and is aided by our e commerce platform, which we created to deliver all the agri input products and the dossier for the farmers.
So we have piloted into this, working them, we'll be scaling up. And we also have our own micro most platform on which the farmers are, can place an order and the delivery can be made. So this is picking up. While it may not be a value equity in terms of the cost versus additional margin, but it provides customer lock in for us. And we feel as part of a great solution to the farming community, we should facilitate this.
So we will try to expand this to many markets, and we have seen the positive benefit of this as well.
Okay okay. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you so much.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of from Ajithya Billion Mutual Funds. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you, and congrats on a good set of numbers. A few questions and clarification. First, on the as we are expanding in non South market, can the volume growth also be attributed to channel filling as well?
No, but consumption also has grown well.
While I agree with you, we don't beyond South market, we have done volumes in North market, but they are all on cash basis and correction has been good and the consumption also happened. Consumption share also has gone up during this quarter.
And what is the growth return policy you follow?
In fertilizer, there's no concept of good return. In crop protection, we have a framework.
It it's not very high. I mean, it's not very significant. We don't push volumes. We will leave basic to the extent of the demand. And some key fatalities, there are no return.
Wherever it is required, depending on the monsoon failure and genuine consideration, we do consider good return that is restricted only to crop protection business. So don't have to worry about the first quarter, whether it's a food sale, which has happened driven the volumes. They are all quality sales. We will be back to the conclusion.
Sure.
Second, on the prices of sulphuric and false both and because we are backward integrated, ideally, it should have helped us in terms of the EBITDA per ton. Right? Because these two prices have gone up, we are backward integrated, and the finished product prices would get adjusted accordingly.
So, it should be good for us. Yes and no.
Sir, okay. Can you elaborate on this and if if are you in a position to quantify how much it would would it would have helped? If you have volatile commodity prices, no one single factor can change with a multiple factor.
Could you optimize your rock usage? How do you source ahead of time?
And how do you price your end product? It's completely dynamic. On a normative basis, we ensure that we get that average EBITDA of 5,000 what we have been talking about. So sometime it goes down marginally, sometime it goes up. But on an annualized basis, this is what we aim for.
And also, besides this cost factors, we also work on improving our productivity throughput. We have set up a digital excellence center in WiSAG. For Industrial 4, we have connected all the plants and sensors and we track the performance. We improve the uptime of new series. So those sort of efficiency improvement and productivity improvement is also helping us to expand the margin.
So there are multiple factors we try to work on to mitigate the impact from high volatility in commodity prices.
Sure. On the subsidy outstanding number, if I look at as a percentage of revenue historically, it remains around 35% of the quarterly sales number versus this quarter, it looks around 41% despite very high base of that quarter revenue. Is there anything to read or worry here on the subsidy side?
No no.
First quarter, the primary sale is higher and the consumption is low because the season starts in third fourth quarter of fourth week of May. So it's a function of channel inventory there at the end of the quarter. But once the consumption begins in July, we can see significant reduction in the channel.
And last on the subsidy and non subsidy EBITDA mix, if you can share?
I think it's around 65% to 67% Tata facility business as against last year of 'seventeen.
There has been significant improvement in our facility during this period.
You so much. All the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of from Asset Managers. Please go ahead.
Hello sir. Thank you for the opportunity. My question now remains is, like, you earlier, you have said that the regulatory approval of NFC acquisition will come in quarter two of this year. So is there any update? And we are planning for the capacity we are working on capacity expansion, like, Kakinada extension and multiproduct plan for and this acquisition also.
So and the company is working on zero net to debt net debt to equity ratio. So can we like in future, the debt will be required in this FY '26?
Good question. In terms of the initial, we have got the competition commission approval and we are waiting for a big clearance and we hope we get this in Q2 and we should be able to complete the transaction. This is as far as the NAC electricity is concerned. In terms of the project CapEx, you said, yes, we have committed quite a few CapEx and been implementing. Close to INR 2,000 crores we'll be spending.
There'll be dipping out of the surplus what we have generated over the period of time. And also, we are investing in the acquisition. So at some stage, company may have to resort to long term funding, especially considering the fact interest rate on long term funding is at the lowest level. So we'll be looking at debt per se is not bad as long as we have a right investment decision. We'll be more than keen to support this with the debt instrument, which provide necessary tax hedges.
Okay sir. And is there any strategic plan you are working on crop protection protection segment?
Yes. As part
of acquisition of NACL?
Yes. As part of the strategy only we have acquired in in this year. We are also looking to expand our product portfolio. We have been launching new products. Last year, we have done 10 products.
This year, first quarter, we have launched 10 new products. Our aim would be to get more inlay in unique molecules, nine three digit stations, and we have created a product pipeline. We are also trying to increase the formulation branded business in domestic market from the current level. On a combined basis, we want to be a significant player in the formulation business as well. And multipurpose plant capacity creation, what we have announced two quarters before, we are trying to evaluate the feasibility of looking at facilities in Nagasino before we commit and separate CapEx.
Aim would be to grow CPC business in the coming years. And all our initiatives and investments will be towards that. Okay, sir. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Ankur from Axis. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, sir. Thanks for the opportunity, and congratulations on good set of numbers. First question on the crop protection side. With NACL, you know, being under our full debt effectively, What are your thoughts in terms of ramping up or whether it is in terms of the product portfolio that we have or it is the geographical network?
And along with that, your thoughts on expansion into, you know, the other products on the specialty nutrient side or the water soluble fertilizer side?
On the NACL, as I mentioned, we have a complementary set of active ingredients except for one molecule, rest of the product difference and they have a different tie up, customer tie up. We operate in different geographies. But to that extent, we will continue to improve the overall combined turnover in the global market. On the domestic side, again, have very strong presence in the national market.
We have significant presence in Qatar, and India. They also have strong brands. We try to see how best we can leverage and combine this to increase the presence in the formulation market. India is a sizable place. So we'll try and see how best we can do it.
Capacity creation, we'll try and put up a new plant only after exploring opportunities of leveraging the current facilities in both the company. Also, on the R and D front, we could synergize efficiency and also the technology what we have. They have some coordination chemistry, which we can leverage effectively. We have some byproducts coming out from our phosphate and which can be leveraged in future for developing coordination chemistry based petrochemicals and for other applications. So we have quite a few areas where we can work together and take the value of.
This is as an ad hoc on agrochemicals. On the specialty nutrients, we have doubled our sulfur capacity last year, commissioned to the plant. We are also looking at expanding our water soluble range by introducing new products As a whole campaign back, to ensure raw material security, we made the first investing in some of the key raw materials required for manufacturing water soluble, which not only provides raw material security for our products, but also create new opportunities to participate in the global market requirements as well. On the bio side, we are trying to expand the product portfolio to go beyond steam based biofacility. And we are introducing microbial.
We are centering our field teams to increase their volume of sales within India and export. So we have ambitious growth plans on certain nutrients and bioproducts, and we are looking for partnerships in this area to bring in R and D to introduce new products. And organic volume, we have increased our presence across various product ranges. And we are also looking to put up a granulation facility for specialty granulation, which includes seaweed and other related specialty products. So we have concrete game plan to grow these two segments. We'll see the results in the coming quarter.
Sure, sir. Just one follow-up on that.
So for all this expansion, the INR 2,000 crore CapEx that we have envisaged for us for, let's say, this financial year, if I could only fix.
This will be over and above this or a large part of this is already covered in this CapEx?
Sorry. Can you please repeat initially? I missed out that point.
Yeah. No worries.
So, you know, the expansion that we are looking at, you know, across these, you know, product areas, this will be an incremental CapEx, which will be over and above the 2,000 crores CapEx that we had called out for. Is that the right assumption?
Yes. You can.
Sure.
And and broadly, if you can quantify what sort of investments are we looking at here over a maybe two year, three year window, that is one. And secondly, we have also set up a NPP for the newest technicals at the hedge. So if you can put some more light over there, yes.
Sir, investment can be we are ready to quantify when we arrange a INR 300 crores across various product categories in these business segments what I spoke about. On the H facility, what sort of technicals that we set up the facility will depend on the new product registrations, which are coming through the global market.
It will be a multipurpose facility with fungibility on switching over from one active ingredient to another one. We are in the evaluation stage. We'll take a call once we come up on the product portfolio.
Great, sir. Last follow-up, one follow-up, if I may.
You initially mentioned on the the BMCC, you know, annual run rate, the rock which is getting supplied to India. I missed that number. If you can help the annual run rate that we are working at right now, the rock profit supply from BMCC for us.
This year, as I said, can be between 300,000 to 400,000. And I really stand up for the next two years.
Sure. Okay. That's helpful, sir. Thank you, and all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of from Antics Stockbroken. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, sir. Thanks for the opportunity. If I look at your number for this quarter, so there's a sharp drop in the depreciation. It was mainly on account of the BNCC BNCC acquisition that we have done in the March, or is there any other component is there?
Good observation. This is due to consolidation of BMCC, which has become a subsidy company, and this mainly relates to amortization of all burden expenditures, which follows under the mine accounting, it gets amortized over the mine life. This gets classified under the depreciation.
So the INR 120 crores kind of our run rate, so that is going to be there for the full year? Or how we can look at this number?
Yes. It can be estimated around that level. Actually, we can say that on a consolidated basis. Only thing is in the second quarter when there is monsoon, there may be a marginal reduction in the production level. So to that extent, it can come down. Again, it will get normalized in Q3 and Q4.
Got it. And sir, if you could help us understanding the revenue run rate for BMCC, it will be very much useful. What is it? Yeah. It's revenue run rate.
Revenue.
Yeah.
Don't have the data immediately. For the quarter or full year, you're talking about?
For the full year. For the full year.
Depends on the volume. Right? You take depending on the volume, whatever we take. Roughly, you can take around $3.50 to 400 crores.
Understood. Yes. And in terms of our subsidy business, so this quarter, you have seen a sharp improvement in terms of overall EBITDA for the subsidy business. So how much that was driven by the inventory gain, if you could keep some light on that?
I always as a company ahead of the season, we stock up materials and there'll be some inventory gains definitely which go into the quarter. And again, it's a function of quantum of raw materials we hold. And first quarter always has this advantage of the lower raw materials, especially when the prices go up. So that has grown into this quarter, but also you should appreciate the fact there's been increase in the fresh raw material purchases as well. So to that extent, the inventory gains have been offset by the increase in raw material prices of sulphur, sulphuric acid, process exchange rate.
So many factors are at play. So it gets normally very difficult to put a number separately, but I would say that an average EBITDA remains there.
Understood. And sir, one last bookkeeping question, if you could clarify. In terms of our cooperation business, how much was the domestic business and how much was the export?
Overall company level?
For the crop protection business.
Crop protection, 40% is export. 60% is domestic b to b and foundation.
Okay okay okay. Thank you, sir. Thanks. Thank you.
Thank
you. The next question is from the line of from Enterprises. Please go ahead.
Hi, Thank you for the opportunity. Hello?
Sorry to interrupt, sir. Can you please hear more louder?
Yes. Am I audible, sir?
Yes, sir. You're audible now.
Sir, my first question is on geography and expansion, which we have mentioned in our annual report, that we will be entering into or we have entered into central and other states of India, like UP, Rajasthan, NP. Sir, what is the strategy in this case considering the fact that we will have additional transportation cost? So how competitive we will be in terms of pricing? And do we have any plans to set up a plant anywhere in the state of India? And my second question is on, sir, urea Cooper prospect.
So can this be served as replacement for conventional urea? And are there any plans to enter into urea manufacturing? In that sense.
On the expansion to Northern markets, as I've been telling in the past as well, we are coming up with the additional capacity at Kartinada close to somewhere like 50,000 tonnes, and we are developing the seed market in Central And Northern India to move these materials from Kakinada to markets like Rajasthan, MP, UP. And as you know, in the current policy framework, railway freight is reimbursed by the government.
So to that extent, MRT will be as competitive as any other players in the state. We don't have immediate plans to set up any facility in the North, but we do have FSP facilities in many of the Northern states, and they have been doing business. This movement of NPKs to these markets will be a portfolio expansion. We do sell crop protection, we sell specialty nutrients, we sell single group of phosphate, with that we are adding NPKs now. And in terms of next question, you had one more query, if I remember it. Can you please repeat the last question?
Luria phosphate, urea phosphate, is it recyclable And do we have plans to enter into urea manufacturing?
No. Urea phosphate does not require that much of volume or capacity. We don't have any immediate plans to set up any urea manufacturing, which is quite capital intensive, and that is less return.
So we have no plans at this point of time. With regard to urea SSD, we can import urea, what is required for manufacturing this. Requirements are not very high. We have set up the facility in Nimrani and now in Udaipur. We are looking to replicate this in Kenmore as well.
And the ratio of NP in this grade is five:sixteen, which is sort of lower version of DAP. You can call this as total DAP. 200 bags of VSSD can replace DAP. That is what we have been educating the farmers about it. And this product can be efficiently manufactured at commodity cost and make it affordable for the farmers as well.
And we can avoid import of DAP, which is not available as of now. This is our strategy behind this, and we will require whatever we require for this will be imported there.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Viraj from SI and PM. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Most of my questions I will answer just to you know, somewhere earlier in the opening of the call, you said that the prices of DAP is even higher than all the NTT products we sell in the marketplace. So in that perspective, if you look at our share of unit grades, one more thing that you would have seen a much more higher uptake of those products in q one vis a vis, you know, what traditionally you would have sold. So but we have seen an increase. One more thing, probably even more higher uptake.
So just trying to understand, you know, was supply a constraint on our side, which, you know, we couldn't maximize or was there any other reason? That is one. And second is something you just said to the previous participant on the urea manufacturing or even for, say, NPK. Now globally, you know, if you can just give some positive, are you seeing any major expansion happening in NPK or DAP or in urea space globally? And internally for us, if we were to look at manufacturing setup in either of the two, say, hypothetically not, what milestones or what parameters you will be looking for before deploying capital?
As far as global capacity growth is concerned on phosphate side, global players are increasing capacity. A leading player in Morocco as well as Saudi, they are expanding capacity. And to get extent, can absorb a sharp decline in exports from China. So India stands to gain on that. In terms of the UDL capacity expansion, these are all fungible capacities, and they can keep shipping our products.
And there are adequate supplies that are there in the market, only the price keeps going up and down. India is also trying to be self sufficient in India with many of the government undertakings being delayed. The volumes are fairly mixed. And we do expect import of U. S.
Needs to come down in the coming days. But unfortunately, the consumption is going up. So if that gets moderated, we should see a gradual reduction in U. S. Imports.
Coming to specifics on capacity creation in North South, greenfield capacity creation is highly prohibitive in terms of cost and the return sector. And the first and foremost is the raw material security. Unless we have a clear visibility in terms of securing the base raw materials, it may be difficult to set up the facility and that's a green field facility will have huge investments and challenges in securing raw materials. So at this point of time, the capacity creation can be through brownfield expansion or through inorganic, it can be a greenfield, my understanding. But having said that, we need to see how the industry play out.
As you all know, P and K overall industry volume is close to 20,000,000, 24,000,000 hence, 14,000,000 is NPK and 10,000,000 is GAC and we are still net importer of DAP and NPK. So there is an opportunity exist in India to create capacity, but the policies need to be conducive, stable, providing reasonable returns and the company should be able to secure raw materials. So these challenges can be managed when the capacities can come up.
And on the unit grade OpEx in Q1, given where the pricing dynamics played out between DAP and NTT?
DAP prices fixed at $13.50, other MRT is on the higher side.
We actually, the Q1 is the ancient growing stage. The unit grades don't go in the initial stage. It's only urea, DAP, NP grades. Unit grades will go stop dosing after the time of flowering and then at the fruiting stage. So to that extent, you can see the increased share of volume happening in Q2 and Q3.
And our focus remains the same. We're bringing differentiation. We add micro and chain. It's grades like SSP plus boron plus zinc plus SSP plus urea. Our share of volumes in the first quarter has gone up significantly.
So we are moving away from traditional SSD holder to value added branded products like this. So that's it. We have been focusing on bringing the new products and the aim also would be to come up with store release, control release purchases, quoted purchases. So these are all the areas we'll be working on in the future.
Got it. Thank you very much. And good luck.
Thank you.
Thank you.
The next question is from the line of S Ramesh from Nirulman Equities. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much and good evening and congratulations on the results. Sir, if you can confirm the start up date for the generation plant, because you mentioned 2128, when exactly would you be completing the generation project? I think twenty six, twenty seven, fourth quarter, which is the calendar year twenty seven January, that quarter we should commission the plant. Okay. And secondly, in the results, when you look at the segment numbers, are we seeing the ACC at EBITDA positive in terms of the nutrient segment? And when do you see that happen?
It's already EBITDA positive in Q1.
Okay. And can you give us the volume growth for domestic formulations, exports and the biological pesticides?
Respect of formulation business, our volume growth is 33%. Exports is close to 20%.
And in bio?
Both volume and value. Bio has doubled because of some yearly orders we secured from US and European market.
So it's almost 100%, would say. So exposure is 20% improvement there is a considerable improvement in the share of crop protection. So are you seeing this as a trend in the next two, three years and would that improve the overall blended EBITDA return for the company? Absolutely. This year is going to be extremely good for crop protection.
The major tariff profit is coming from crop protection and we keep increasing our capacity. We keep introducing new poly tools. We have systematically worked on bringing new products and all these will yield results in the coming years. The momentum what we are seeing this year will continue in the years to come.
Okay.
Is it possible to give a timeline as to when you expect the NACL to turn around and become profitable?
NACL is a window close to play. They want to comment at this point of time. Once they publish the results, you will see.
Okay.
Thank you very much, and wish you all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Himanshu Binani from Anandrati. Please
So thank you for taking the question. So I'll just start with regarding NSE. So in the past, we have talked about getting into the crash side of the business in the crop protection side. And in NFC, we do have some facility related to that. So to do to hold that is correct ahead in this case.
Sorry to hear your voice is cracking.
Hello?
No, sir. The voice is still cracking.
Hello?
Yes, sir.
So, sir, my issue was largely on the side, basically. So in the past, you have talked about getting into the cramp side of the business in the CPC segment. And in NACL, what I understand is that we do have a facility out there.
So are we going to use that or we would be, like, going or using our own thing or we would be like doing an organic thing in this?
We'll be leveraging the capacity as well as in and they do have facilities and stack capacities. We'll definitely be leveraging on this. They have their required expertise as well and their plans are designed to further. We will be definitely debating some of the objectives and synergy benefits we articulated at the time of acquisition also.
Got it, sir. Got it. And so by when can we expect the entire application to end here? Good.
Sorry to interrupt, sir. Sorry. Your voice again cracked.
Hello?
Yes. I mean, the thing is fine. I didn't hear you.
So Yeah.
So by then, we can expect the native integration to be like done in Kurumandan?
Right now, we are in the process of completing the open offer after city approval, and then we'll make it as part of our subsidy. And it is done as separate entity that is the strategy at this point of time. What is going to happen in future, we need to study. The main would be to ensure that whatever we articulated at the time of acquisition, we deliver those numbers for anything.
Got it, sir. Got it. Thank you, sir.
Thank you very much.
You.
Ladies and gentlemen, this was the last question. And I now hand the conference over to Mr. Shankar Subramanian for the closing comments. Thank you and over to you sir.
Sir, thank you thank you everyone who participated in the call and the insightful questions. And definitely some of the areas where you have identified, we'll definitely work on and with your support and guidance, we'll definitely come up with good performance in the coming quarter. Thank you, Manish also for that and increasing this call.
Thank you. On behalf of Coromandel International Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us and you may now disconnect your lines.
Thank you.