...Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to the Q1 FY25 post-results earnings conference call of Gujarat Fluorochemicals, hosted by Batlivala & Karani Securities. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star, then zero on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Archit Joshi from Batlivala & Karani Securities. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you, Belle, and welcome to all participants to the Q1 FY25 earnings conference call of Gujarat Fluorochemicals Limited. We have with us today Bir Kapoor, Chief Executive Officer of the company, and the senior management team members to discuss the quarterly performance. Without further ado, I'd like to hand over the floor to the management for the opening remarks, post which we can have a Q&A session. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you, Archit. Good evening, everyone. A very warm welcome to all of you on GFL's earnings call for the quarter ended 30th June 2024. The company announced its Q1 FY25 results at its board meeting held today on 13th of August 2024. The results, along with the earnings presentations, are available on the stock exchange and on our website. I will briefly talk about the numbers and then give you an update on the business operations and outlook. The company reported a consolidated revenue from operations for Q1 FY25 of INR 1,176 crore, up by 4% on quarter-on-quarter basis. Consolidated EBITDA for Q1 25 was INR 262 crore, up by 10% on quarter-on-quarter basis. The EBITDA margin for this quarter was 22%, marginally up from 21% in the previous quarter.
Consolidated PAT for Q1 FY 2025 was INR 108 crore, up by 7% on quarter-on-quarter basis. The profitability in this quarter was impacted by higher interest rates and depreciation, as we have incurred higher CapEx in previous quarters for future growth. However, the commensurate revenues will ensue in future once commercial supplies commence subsequent to validation and approval process. In both EV and fluoropolymers, the validation period is quite long, which results into a lag in business buildup. A consequence of validation, however, is the stickiness of the business for a sustainable period. We believe that as the operating leverage improves, the profitability will increase sharply as the capacity gets fully utilized in FY 2026 and 2027, and this, again, I'm referring primarily to EV sector. While the fluoropolymers will marginally...
I'm sorry, the fluoropolymer will meaningfully add to our top line in this and the next financial year, the battery material vertical will provide substantial growth in future years. Let me give you a quick update on the battery materials business catering to EV and ESS segments. We are actively engaged with 20+ potential customers across the EV ecosystem in US, EU, Japan, Korea and India. Many Indian and global customers have audited our LiPF6 electrolyte and PVDF binder manufacturing facility and approved it. The product sampling and validation is in progress, with over 50 samples shipped to customers globally. Also, the contract for LiPF6 electrolyte and PVDF binders are being finalized, and commercial supplies is expected to commence from Q4 FY2025. The LFP plant commissioning is expected in third quarter of this financial year.
Let me briefly take you through the performance of each business segment for the quarter. During the quarter, caustic soda prices have marginally increased. However, the MDC prices have softened further, and the production was close to the baseline operations during the quarter. The fluorochemical segments witnessed pickup both in volume and price of refrigerants. Specialty chemical volumes and prices remained muted during the quarter and continued to face headwinds from Chinese competition. Fluoropolymers continue to improve quarter and quarter. However, the revenues during this quarter have been impacted because of the logistic disruptions caused due to Red Sea crisis. New fluoropolymers continue to witness market pull due to strong growth fundamentals in semicon industry and successful product developments in application related to emission control in auto industry. Additionally, a post-processing facility has been commissioned to capture a larger shares in the premium segments of very high purity products.
Manufacturing plan for making PVDF film for solar application has also been commissioned, and the products are under validation stage at this point. As we have been guiding, we continue to see growth quarter and quarter. The new fluoropolymers continue to be on an upward journey, and we believe that we'll be able to substantially utilize the new fluoropolymers capacities set up earlier by fourth quarter of this financial year. Post establishing ourselves as one of the credible global player in fluoropolymers, we are now embarking to position ourselves as the global leader in the battery material sector. Let me give you a brief update on the battery material sector. The global markets are moving towards EV adoption and penetration of ESS, driven by the clean climate agenda. There is a strong emphasis on stabilizing supply chain, which is independent of single country exposure.
In view of this situation, we present a very strong and dependable supply chain option, which not only presents a large bouquet of products, but is also a fully backward-integrated materials provider. As more and more capacity is being set up globally for ESS and EV batteries, the quest for diversified supply chain, large OEM manufacturers are looking for viable partners who have experience with strong balance sheet and capability to be able to meet their requirements. We are seeing a strong traction in global markets for such product offerings. As we had stated, we are currently engaged with some of the largest global auto battery, auto and battery manufacturing companies.
The nature of our discussion is primarily focused on long-term formula-based contracts, as the qualification and validation process is long, and the auto OEM and battery manufacturers would like to restrict to maximum two or three suppliers to ensure consistency in quality and product performance, leading to long-lasting, sustainable partnerships. At the end, on EV segment, I would like to reemphasize that a combination of first mover advantage, along with robust backward integration and a supply chain independent of China, is a strong strategic advantage for us. We are surely on a robust growth journey with all our fundamentals in place and a large global market available to us due to macroeconomic drivers like environment and sustainability. With this, I would like to now leave the floor open for question and answer. Thank you.
Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Sanjesh Jain from ICICI Securities. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, sir. Thanks for taking-
Good afternoon, Sanjesh. Please.
Good afternoon, sir. Just first on the fluoropolymer business. If I look at the performance of Chemours, where the volumes have grown 16% quarter-on-quarter, which indicates that the volumes in the developed market, at least on the fluoropolymer side, are coming back. That means destocking is largely behind us. But that kind of an optimism again, I don't see in our numbers. So what are we missing here?
Yeah, Sanjesh, I think yes, destocking is behind us, and the numbers are typically as we expected, to be driven by multiple factors. The first, of course, is growth in the new fluoropolymers segments, which we expected, driven by the capacity that we had put in place and also the validation process. Second, of course, the exit of legacy players, which is taking place. So we are seeing a lift, okay? The growth rate, you know, you can debate, is there or not there. This quarter, there is some amount of, of course, subdued net that we see because there are some of our shipments going to particularly US markets, got delayed almost by a week, a week and a half, a little bit more. So, but I think we will catch up.
The fundamentals, and we are seeing a pickup, at least driven by multiple sectors and primarily driven by semicon sectors. Okay. So I think, yes, we would have loved to see a higher growth rate and but the fundamentals are in place, and I think, I think we'll see some as we go along. That is, it'll, it will continue. We'll continue on our growth journey.
But semicon is largely PFA, so what's happening on the FKM, PTFE and PVDF? Where are we in terms of the volume growth for these products? Even domestic was supposed to add because of the stringent norms. But again, none of these are really in the way we thought, is still not visible on the numbers.
It will be visible, and I am inviting my colleague, Kapil Malhotra, who is the head of our fluoropolymer business, to talk about the specific segment that you asked about.
Thank you, sir.
Yeah, hi, Sanjesh. Good evening.
Good evening.
Yeah. So to answer to you one of your specific question, that you are talking about some of the, domestic business for, even FKM, if you're talking about. So we are going to see this fuel mix happening, and affecting us positively from the, first quarter of the next calendar year, that is the last quarter of this year, financial year. And, so we are absolutely geared up for that. Some of the grades which were to be parked in place are already under evaluation. Some of them have been approved, some of them are under the process of approval, as it's a new journey in the Indian context. So we are absolutely gung ho about it, and, we are, we have created capacities, we have created all the grades, and we are just waiting for the event to happen now.
So you will see that positive traction coming in in the last quarter of this financial year.
Kapil, what will be the India demand, in your sense, for this? Because we will be replacing the traditional rubber with the FKM. How much FKM capacity do you think India will require to do this transition?
See, right now, Sanjesh, it is very difficult to calculate and answer that, because it's a gradual process. As I, as I said, it is happening in India for the first time. We have created some kind of a momentum and capacity, but to go forward, it can be, it can be good, but how good? We'll only come to know only three quarters down the line.
But any, any indication you are seeing there, it could be fairly large for us?
It's going to be how large? We'll, we'll come to know later.
Got it. Got it. Clear. Thanks, Kapil. So next, coming to the battery chemical side, we are expecting some amount of contracts to be executed from the end of this fiscal year. So is this domestic contract or these are international? And these are for what? LFP or salt or electrolyte?
These contracts that we are referring to are mostly global.
Okay.
Because as you said, that our focus on EV sector is primarily go global. It would be difficult for me to specifically say which one, but of course, our two front runners are there in our products. One is LiPF6 and second is electrolyte.
Okay.
Of course, the LFP, as I have indicated, the plant is very close to getting commissioned. We expect to get it commissioned in by quarter three of this year. So I think it's most of it is global. Of course, electrolyte is primarily focused on for Indian markets.
So when you say global, it should be largely salt, right?
Yes.
Okay. Okay,
Salt and LFP as well. LFP and PVDF.
Okay. No, I was just coming to the PVDF part of it. We were in the process of validation and certification from the western part of the world. Have you got the certification for battery-grade PVDF?
It's quite close. It's almost at the final stages of certification right now. However, you know, the way it works, typically, Sanjesh, is then while the qualification is in progress, the contract discussions and the pricing discussions happen simultaneously. So, typically, when we are engaging with a serious customer, both of these things happen parallelly. And, you know, with this go with the presumption that it will get qualified, and we are sure it will get qualified. There are absolutely no issue.
Got it. And just one last question before I come back in the queue. Kapoor said, still we stand with our guidance that we will be able to do an EBITDA, which we did in FY 2023, which is around INR 1,700-INR 1,800 crore of EBITDA?
So we are I mean, as I indicated, we had, we were hoping that we'll reach there, and we still think we'll reach there, give or take a quarter here and there. We will definitely come to the run rate, of that, last FY 2023 financial year or even, beyond that. So probably give or take a quarter, on a rolling basis should be.
... Got it, got it. That's, that's very clear. Thank you, sir. Thanks, and best of luck for the coming quarters. Okay.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Sudarshan Padmanabhan from JM Financial. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thank you for taking my question. Sir, my question is to understand the impact of, you know, the Red Sea, as you mentioned in the presentation. One is, I would assume because of the transit time, there could be impact, you know, as you mentioned on the fluoropolymer side, I mean, if you can mention the quantum. And broadly, two things: One, you know, even, you know, as far as the cost is concerned, because wherever we see, we see that, the shipping cost is basically through the roof. And, you know, second is, you know, as far as imports are concerned, which would basically be a strength for us, given that we are relatively more, you know, integrated. So, you know, putting all the three into perspective, if you can give some color on the Red Sea and the impact, you know-
Can you hear me? Hello.
Yes. Hello? Yes, hello.
Your voice was not very clear. It was coming out muffled.
Yeah. Sir, I just wanted to understand the impact of the Red Sea, as you had mentioned, in the presentation.
Uh, okay.
One is the sales. I would understand because of the transit time, there would have been, you know, a spillover as far as sales are concerned. But apart from that as well, I mean, the cost, and is the Red Sea actually going to be a benefit for us, given that, you know, we are more integrated? I mean, to that extent, our imports will be relatively less, you know, dependent as compared to peers. And because of our cost efficiency, does the Red Sea basically be a tailwind for us in terms of getting more, you know, visibility with customers?
Yeah. I think, you know, of course, we are not importing, we are completely backward integrated, as you know, and our imports, of course, are not-
Yeah, which is why I'm asking whether that will be a benefit for us.
So I think as far as Red Sea is concerned, for us, it's more of a sale getting deferred because, you know, we have a model where we send our material to our warehouses in U.S. and Europe, and extra 15 days being added to shipping time, because now it's going via Cape of Good Hope, is-
Mm-hmm
... is causing some sort of a deferment. And particularly, one more thing, Sudarshan, that our market is on a growth phase, as you know, that we have been building up volume from month on month.
Mm-hmm.
In that case, you know, I need to make sure that more of my material reaches my warehouses.
Mm-hmm
... in North America, and that's what is causing it. Coming back to having an advantage, yes, I mean, that's an inherent advantage that we have, and that's why customers are engaged with us, because we are—our intake or our raw materials are not really dependent on Red Sea crisis.
Sure. And, I mean, what would be the quantum of, the sales deferment? Would it be, you know, quite large or, you know, it would basically be relatively lesser? Just trying to understand the magnitude.
I would say probably 1-1.5 weeks, because that's how roughly my shipments are getting delayed almost by 2 weeks, which we tried to push and try to make it up. But 1-1.5 weeks can be taken.
Sure, sir. My next question is, you know, to understand on the, you know, the refrigerant gases. We have seen that last year, you know, the refrigerant gases went through, you know, pretty bad, you know, phase in terms of pricing as well as volumes. But it was, you know, good to see that the light there, you know, it's the end of the tunnel, and we are seeing some kind of an upward traction in the prices and the volumes. Can you give some color, you know, as we move forward, is the worst over? What are we looking at as far as, you know, things are concerned in this aspect going forward?
Yeah. Again, Sudarshan, your voice is a little bit muffled, but as I understand, you are asking question on refrigerant gases. Is that right?
Yes. Yes, sir. Yes.
Refrigerant gases, of course, last quarter was normally, you know, it's a seasonal thing, last quarter was supposed to be good quarter. So, in terms of, if you talk about R22, yes, we had a good volume in R22. Going forward, I think, based on the seasonality, I am not expecting much in next two quarter. However, in the third or fourth quarter, we expect again the volumes to pick up. As far as the pricing is concerned, you know, from January onward next year, R22 quota will get reduced, and then there might be some firming of the prices because of that. So we look forward to perhaps slightly better refrigerants in Q4. Okay.
But our business focus and our product range in this refrigerant business is very limited. We are primarily in R22.
Sure, sir. So one final question before I join back the queue is, you know, we do see a huge opportunity on the EV side, you know, on the battery chemical side, which we are investing in, and there is also huge, you know, growth, you know, ahead of us, specifically in newer application of fluoropolymer. With the CapEx ahead, and I'm sure that, you know, we would also be, you know, funding it from, you know, growth from, you know, the cash flows. You know, what is the kind of, you know, EV to EBITDA or debt to EBITDA that we would be comfortable with as far as the balance sheet is concerned to fund this growth?
... So right now, as we have indicated, Sudarshan, that, I mean, we have made certain investment, which we have announced already in EV segment. And, our subsequent growth in this segment, we will be funding it not from internal accruals, but from, external fundings. And we talked a lot in detail about it when we had a call in February on, on EV segment. So we are still holding on to that, and we have-- there we had also given a very, guidance in terms of what our asset turnover ratios is going to be, what our expected EBITDA, margins is going to be. So I think we are holding on to those numbers.
Sure, sir. Thanks a lot, I'll join back with you.
Thank you very much. Thanks, Sudarshan.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Rohit Nagraj from Centrum Broking. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks for the opportunity, and congrats on sequential improvement in operating performance. First question is on the CapEx front. So on slide 13, we have given CapEx. I think last quarter, the EV CapEx was slated at INR 800 crore. Now we have reduced it to INR 700 crore. So is there any recalibration which we are doing in terms of CapEx, given the current circumstances, and where the industry is obviously grappling with overcapacity from China? So your thoughts on this. And just second question also, probably more or less aligned to this.
Given that, there has been a lot of capacity addition in China happening across fluorochemical, fluoro intermediates, as well as fluoropolymers, what is the sense that we are getting in terms of the future, you know, mainly, in terms of, pricing, and whether our project dynamic also will change, based on these new pricing and the return ratios probably will be lesser than what we are expecting now? Thank you.
Thanks, Rohit. Let me first take up your first question regarding the CapEx. The CapEx fine-tuning is a normal process, okay, when we looked at the. So, our, I mean, short-medium-term or long-term CapEx plans are all intact. This is just in this year, we thought that probably we'll be able to do INR 700 in EV, and some of it actually gets rolled over to the next year. So that was then. Otherwise, fundamentals are very strong. We have not, in the EV, we have not cut any projects. As we have indicated, you know, we had four or five product lines which we are pushing, and our plans to set up capacities on all these verticals are still there. Okay. Coming back to the issue of Chinese versus non-China, let me take up in two parts.
The first is EV segments. EV segments, I think we have indicated many times that the market and the segment that we are targeting primarily is the U.S. market. And these markets are not accessible to Chinese players because of the IRA compliance. In addition to that, even the markets where Chinese players are allowed to enter, there is a very, very strong drive to develop alternate supply chain, and that's where we come in. So as far as the Chinese capacities are there, I think we need to look at what are the capacities which are outside China, and that's exactly is our, our play field, and that's exactly where we are competing with. And, and there, if you look at the players, we are one of the strongest for multiple reasons.
One, of course, is that we present a very strong bouquet of products. And second, that we have a propensity to grow, and we are, and we backward integrated. We are one of the few players outside China, where we are integrated all the way up to fluorospecialties. And, if you look at the entire EV product player or the manufacturer, you won't find, in fact, not more than one or two who have this capability. In fact, probably not even one. Okay. So I think, if you look at in the proper segmentation, I think you would understand that the Chinese capacities may not really impact us or our growth plans. Coming back to fluoropolymers. Fluoropolymers, Chinese capacities were always there, okay? Even when we started long time back, even today.
So I'm not so sure that there is a new Chinese capacities which is getting added in in fluoropolymers in China. However, I would like... Kapil, you want to add anything there?
Yeah. In fact, I would say that most of the growth which we have been talking about fluoropolymers is going to come into the high value-added segments. And China is not into those high value-added segments, as also we have discussed in the last calls also. So we are investing in those products in new fluoropolymers, where we are going to head for the high purity segments and the high value-added segments. Hence, the competition is with the legacy players, and has already been indicated to you earlier and also by Bir Kapoor, that some of these legacy players either some of them have gone out or some of them are on the way out.
So there the position for us becomes very clear, that we become one of the key preferred suppliers in these high value-added segments, and that's where the opportunity for us is there to grow further, as we have indicated to you.
Okay. So, I mean, once again, I would like to reiterate, Rohit, that the fine-tuning of CapEx is not too much to be read in terms of market. And that's number that we are talking about, is hardly INR 100 crore, which is nothing but a deferment of some of the cash flowing to the following financial year. Okay.
Okay. Thanks, and all the best, sir. Thank you.
Thank you. Thanks, Rohit.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Nitin Agarwal from DAM Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Thanks for taking my question. So I'll just go back to the fluoropolymer comments that you were making earlier. I mean, two parts: one is, A, the comment that you made, with respect to the legacy players moving out. I mean, this is a commentary that we've heard for some time and been waiting for this event to play out. So if you can just help us understand, more from a 2-3-year perspective, I mean, how is it withdrawal, I mean, how is the market right now? Where is the market right now, rather, in terms of, you know, the legacy players, you know, withdrawing from this market? And at what stage, does it start to benefit us or start getting reflected in our, our volume gains for fluoropolymers?
Very good, Nitin, good question. I think, we had always said about legacy player, but, you know, I think we'll have to look at the entire thing in a perspective that when are they actually exiting the market, what's the rate, what are they doing? And I'll request Kapil to quickly add here. Kapil, go ahead.
Yeah. Yeah, Nitin. So, so one of the main legacy players already announced that they will be moving out by end of 2025. So what has happened is that since they were also into the high segment, high-value added segment, we already had some drop-in products where we started getting some business, and we are already going into that market. But some of the other grades are under evaluation. So we expect that probably from the beginning of next year, we should start seeing those, as customers have also promised us, that the moment we start getting the approvals, they will start you know giving us more market shares.
We expect that process to start probably in a speedy way from end of the quarter of this financial year and start gaining quarter by quarter in the next year. By the time they exit, we will also have a good market share in that segment.
And then on that, you know, if you were to just, not to look at numbers, but qualitatively, you know, versus, I mean, how should we think about the size of the opportunity, I mean, both in, I mean, maybe in value terms or value or, or volume terms, how should... You know, what really opens up for us, you know, because of this development which is gonna happen over, say, next two to three-year period?
Okay. So I think exact opportunities, of course, would be difficult for us to highlight. However, you know, we were looking at it from the perspective of the capacity that we have in place. And that's also the legacy player that Kapil was mentioning, it's clearly 3M. So, our plan is to develop the products. Some of the products are drop-in, like Kapil said, and some of course are being developed. So the way we have structured our capacities and the plan is to capture that opportunity. It's difficult for me to say what size of global opportunity are there. You know, typically, I think you can, the entire 3M goes away, that entire volume actually gets available. Okay. And, Kapil, you can add then.
And one more point, one is that we are talking about the replacement of the void, which is going to be created. The second, we are also talking about the growth coming in this segment. So both are opportunities for us. Wherever the opportunity is coming first, we are trying to capture it, the legacy are going out and also along with the growth coming in these particular sectors. So it's coupled together.
Got you. So, so if I were to just think about this, you know, when we look at the fluoropolymer business for this year, for the next two to three quarters, it probably scales from the levels where it is, and then it probably begins to inflect somewhere in FY 2026, is where the, you know, the pace really takes off. Is that the way to think about our fluoropolymer business?
Not really. I think what, Nitin, we are saying is that the pace is going to pick up in this financial year itself. Okay? We expect, the fluoropolymer business to grow, and quarter and quarter, right, you will see, our fluoropolymer business's performance improving or going up. And, that actually will, in quarter four, be expected to reach, and it will continue to reach. But the growth, of course, in the next financial year will be, will come down. So most of the growth in fluoropolymer, we would expect to see during the next three to four quarters.
Okay. And so the last one: so in terms of the current capacities which are there for fluoropolymers, with all of the opportunities that we see in the space, I mean, are the current capacities enough to take care of that, or do we need to step up CapEx or probably plan for some incremental CapEx for this business?
See, what happened, Nitin, is that we have put sufficient capacities in terms of monomer, okay? And right now, the capacity that we have, we expect to get it utilized by fourth quarter of this year or probably early next year. I think we will have to revisit the potential opportunity as it emerges probably later on during this year, and we may decide to add the reactors. Okay, certainly.
Okay, thank you so much.
Thank you. A reminder to all the participants that you may press star and one to ask a question. The next question is from the line of Utkarsh Somaiya from an individual investor. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Thank you for the opportunity. Can you please provide details on the specific products and the application that the new subsidiary in Oman plans to manufacture? Also, which market, market segments will the products cater to, and how will they integrate into the broader EV?
Sorry to interrupt, Mr. Utkarsh. Could you come a bit closer to the handset and speak?
Is it better now?
Yes, sir.
Yeah. Hi. Could you please provide details on the specific products and their application that the Oman subsidiary plans to manufacture? Yeah, Utkarsh, the Oman, being an FTA country to U.S., and we have always indicated. Mm-hmm. That our, one of our focus market area is U.S. So it'll be focused on battery chemicals, primarily. Mm. And catering to U.S. market. At this point of time, I cannot give you more details about the product, but, it's primarily be for EV segment and catering to U.S. markets. That's what the plan is right now. Okay. Any more comments as to how it might integrate into the broader EV ecosystem? If you can comment. I mean, if you can't, it's okay, but in case you can give any details.
So in terms of integrated means, it'll probably be the similar product lines that we already have. So it'll be, we'll probably be manufacturing these products from another site, which is located in an FTA country, to cater to U.S. markets. And this is again, primarily to ensure the IRA compliance and giving us strength to access to those markets. Okay. Is it a product extension or just a plant to manufacture the same products? It's going to be the similar product lines. You know, if you look at the battery segment, what we had already indicated, there are, you know, a few product lines and which we will continue in those. And again, it'll more be on the chemical segments. Okay. Best of luck then. Thank you so much. Thanks. Thanks, Utkarsh.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Ketan Gandhi from Gandhi Securities. Please go ahead.
Hi, thank you. Sir, is it possible for you to quantify the revenue not booked due to the Red Sea?
Just a rough number could be INR 70-80 crores. Ketan, that's what number is.
Yeah. Fair enough. And sir, any plan to reduce the cost of energy? It is the, I think, biggest and the largest line item in the expenses. I believe we had thought that we should be buying wind or solar power from the C&I segment. So how can, how can we save on cost of the energy going forward, and if you can quantify that amount?
That's already in our plan, Ketan, that we are looking at.
Beginning.
Beginning of next year, getting into the renewable energy and putting a long-term contracts in place for the same. So probably next year onward, you will see improvement in our energy cost, and also have both advantages, not only the cost, but also the environmental footprints.
Okay. Any ballpark figures, sir, how much we can save in next 2-3 years? Broader idea. If you can share, otherwise, it's okay, I mean, if you can't share.
Around INR 100 crore, you can take.
All right.
Or I mean, it'll... We'll probably be more specific when we, when we talk to you maybe later in this year.
Sure. Thank you so much, and all the best.
That order.
Okay.
INR 100+ crores.
Thank you, sir, and all the best.
Thanks. Thanks.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Sanjesh Jain from ICICI Securities. Please go ahead.
Thanks for taking my question again. So just one question on this CapEx of INR 500 crore and INR 700 crore, which we intend to do in FY 2025. Can you give us more detail, where are these CapEx spent, particularly in the parent entity?
See, parent entity, I think we had already indicated earlier. Some of it is, you know, ongoing CapExes that we had started last year, you know, in fluoropolymer capacity expansions. We have also, as we have indicated, that we have set up a post-processing facility also to get into the premium end segments. So most of it is actually in fluoropolymer, Sanjesh, okay? And that we started last year. Some of it is capacity building, some of it is post-processing, so it's primarily the fluoropolymer segments only. Okay?
What is expected CapEx for FY 2026, assuming that we achieve the target for this year? How should it look like for FY 2026? Will it be to the tune of INR 500-1,000 crore, again, for the fluoropolymer segment?
Sanjesh, "...", give us some little bit more time, because I think we'll probably have it by the next two quarters, so we'll have a firmer plan, and we will, we'll guide you on that. But of course, a lot of it depends how it takes up, and then our plan to add more capacity as we get these capacities utilized. Okay?
So what we were thinking in terms of fluoropolymer capacity, say, 2 years back, are we there or we are still short of it?
No. Which, when? Fluoropolymer capacity, when? You're talking about two years from now, or?
Two years from now. So, no, no. So two years back, we were, we were planning to go from 700 metric ton per month capacity to 1600-1800 metric ton per ton, kind of, per month, kind of a capacity. Are we there now, with this year, or, or you think there is still, some headroom from the previous capacity expansion?
We are almost there, Sanjesh, except in some of the fluoropolymers, we have held back our reactors because we have put up the capacities for monomers. Okay? But we are more or less there, what we had planned.
Okay, so the next year it would be a CapEx plan that will be beyond that, what we were, we had in our earlier projections.
Yeah, I can, if I have to, as I said, that we'll give you a firm answer, maybe, you know, by the end of this year. But nevertheless, if you want to look at the direction, the first direction would be to add more reactor where we have monomer capacities. You know, whether that monomer is in the, in the, on the PTFE side or on the, or on the, R-142b side. So we'll have capacity first to exhaust it and then look for additional capacity later on.
Got it. Got it. Got it. That's, that's clear.
Thank you.
Thank you. Thanks, thanks for answering the question.
Thanks, Sanjesh.
Thanks.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Rohit Nagraj from Centrum Broking. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks for the follow-up. Again, apologies for harping on the China side. So on the fluoropolymers, we are primarily going for value addition. However, the base capacity, I mean, base polymer capacities are there in China. Effectively, the base polymer, fluoropolymer pricing, will it be more or less determined, by China? And our value addition will certainly dictate the prices of, what the high-end polymers are. So just your perspective on this, sir. Thank you.
Yeah. Thanks, Rohit. I'll again, once again invite, Kapil to take your question. Please, Kapil.
Yeah, Rohit, in fact, you know, two quarters back when we had the investor call, there I'd mentioned that our plan is to move away from the Chinese competition and go into those applications where we are, you know, going into aerospace, automotive, semiconductor, EV applications, where the Chinese are not present or because the nature of these applications are such, they require high purity, products. Secondly, the gestation period in terms of the approval cycle is pretty long, and that's where we score. And, so hence, there the prices are not dictated by the Chinese. There, the prices are just there, where, you know, you can get your best prices from the customers on the value addition you are giving to the customers.
This is a segment where we have kept ourselves going from strength to strength, and despite the headwinds from China, we still are trying to see to it that we grow strength to strength every quarter, and that is why we constantly talk about it.
Sure, this is really helpful. So the second question, again, apologies for harping on the guidance part of FY 2025 in terms of EBITDA. So we are looking at a quarterly EBITDA run rate of about INR 400-500 crores. And given that first quarter, we have done about INR 260-270 crores, it's likely probably a you know, longer way to go. What gives us confidence that we will reach that level of INR 400-500 crores over the next maybe 2-4 quarters? Is it backed by certain firm orders from our customers, or the other way that you had indicated about the competition going out of the system?
Are there some capacity of the competition which is going out of the system in near term, and later on, again, incremental capacities will go out, out of the system? Just your thoughts on this. Thank you.
Yeah. Once again, Rohit, I think the confidence that we are getting, part of it is, it's both, you know, because we have certain approvals in place, and there has been an indication from our customers that it'll, you know, the volume will pick up. And we have all the elements in place. We have the capacities, we have validation, and it's a natural growth process in some of the products that we expect. This is once again driven primarily by the legacy players and also by the natural growth that we are seeing. Clearly, we had indicated earlier about the semicon.
We are seeing a very strong tailwind in this sector, in one of our product line, where the demand is, there's a pull from the customer side, and we are gearing up to meet that pull. And that's where our confidence is coming from, because we have volumes which has been indicated by the customers. In some cases, you know, when we talked about the domestic segments, couple mentioned about FKM, and there is a potential upside that we are expecting in this. Okay. So-
Sure. This is really helpful. Thanks a lot, and all the best, sir. Thank you.
It will come, Rohit, in the second half. Okay, you'll see a build-up coming up in fluoropolymers, okay? So today we are on inflection point. We are very close to where we were in quarter one last year, which was actually the end of the FY 2023. Okay. So now the reverse process will start from here onwards.
Fair enough. Fair enough, sir. Thanks a lot. Thanks a lot. That gives a lot of confidence. Thank you so much.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Yash Shah from Investec India. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Thank you for the opportunity.
Could you come up, Mr. Yash? Could you come a bit close to the handset?
Just one second. Is this better?
Yeah, much better.
Right. Hi, sir. Sir, thank you for the opportunity. My first question was regarding the EV battery capacity, what, what we have in LFP, LiPF6, and the electrolyte. Just wanted to understand how much we are going to be able to use captively versus selling it outside. So will you be able to provide some color? How much of the capacity do we have in across the value chain?
Yash, we have not provided any numbers in terms of values and also details like that, because that's, we believe at this point of time when we are building up the business, some of it is, we need to keep it confidential for the competitive edge, okay? So it will not be possible for us to give you the precise numbers.
All right, sir. No, that is fine. But if you can provide basically broadly, to help us understand, how much will you be using it captively? Like, what are your plans regarding using them captively versus selling them outside? Some kind of a proportion or a ratio which you might have, like, basically drawn at this point.
See, the captive will primarily be used for electrolytes, okay? And electrolyte will be mostly for domestic sectors. So our LiPF6 for domestic sector will primarily go as electrolytes. Okay. Now, so the ratio, if I have to, give you any indication, it will not be possible for me to give you exact, but to, directionally, whatever LiPF6 that I'll be targeting for domestic sector will be the captive consumptions, okay? And whatever is going out to global would be the going as a salt. So long-term growth plan, when India market fully develops, probably it can be a significant split, perhaps 50/50, of that order. However, in the short term, it will be dominated primarily by the global side. Okay. All right?
Yeah. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. This is, this is helpful. All right, sir. Got it. Thank you.
Thank you so much. Thank you.
Thank you.
Reminder to all participants that you may press Star and One to ask a question. The next question is from the line of Abhishek Jain, an individual investor. Please go ahead.
Hello. Yeah, thanks for giving the opportunity. So, recently I was going through a report from one of the broker, where they were saying that GFL's most product is mostly on the PFAS side, and which is facing the issue due to environmental concern. And the reason the players like 3M is exiting is because of environmental action, and in future, products which may be PFAS-free. So in line with that, just wanted view on that, how do you think it's happening, whether India and other economies will stop taking PFAS and there will be alternative to it? How is the landscape going to be?
Yeah, Abhishek, I think we have talked a lot in detail about this in some of my previous calls. One of the reasons for exit was not really related to fluoropolymer, because the PFAS issue is primarily for fluoro compounds, which are mobile and toxic, which essentially gets into the, which has a mobility getting into the cell mechanism. Okay. So the thing is that so they have to have mobility in the ecosystems. So typically, fluoropolymers are a very inert compound and not that much falling into the category, which may pose any kind of a threat because of the PFAS.
And this has been recognized and, there have been, you know, now if looking at the new regulations or the direction in which regulatory authorities are going, they are trying to exclude, the fluoropolymers out of it. However, in the process of, making fluoropolymers, there is a sometimes fluorinated aids are used and, and that can potentially create some issue, but that is highly contained now, and, that's also is not an issue at this point of time. So, I think, we are... It's not that, that, that we are concerned. We are not really concerned about it, because fluoropolymer as, as products, are high performance material going into the sunrise sectors, whether it's solar or EV or hydrogen.
So they are all getting into these new sectors, and they are required for the growth of this new age segments. So I think it has been well recognized right now, Abhishek, and there's no that way pressure in terms of phasing any of the fluoropolymers out because of the... And it has been well recognized globally.
What about the also news of Clariant developing a product which is PFAS-free? Will that be a competition?
Which free? I'm sorry, I didn't get your point.
PFAS-free product by Clariant.
Clariant is not into fluoropolymers. I'm not sure what you're talking about, because they could be talking about, because they are into paints and coatings and additives, so maybe there may be some specific products, which they may be talking about, but I'm sorry, I cannot comment on that.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question for today. We have reached the end of our question and answer session. I would now like to hand the conference over to the management for closing comments.
Thank you very much. Archit, thanks for... And I would like to thank all the participants and investors for taking interest in us. Clearly, as we had indicated earlier, that we are seeing a turnaround, and we continue to maintain that position. The growth rate, however, may not appear to be as high as, you know, we would like to see. However, it's firm in place and the quality of this growth that now we are seeing, driven by fluoropolymers, we expect it to be more robust and stable, and we expect to see and continue to see this growth quarter and quarter. As I had indicated in between our call, that we expect to see more in the second half of this quarter.
So, clearly, I think, yes, there are always minor headwinds here and there, but fundamentals are very, very strong, and I think we are on the growth journey. So this is for fluoropolymers. And for EV, of course, our fundamentals are very, very strong. We are—our positioning in EV is also very strong. We are one of the highly credible partner which has capability to execute battery chemicals and deliver battery chemicals globally across all our customers. So, and also driven by the supply chain, which is independent of of China. Okay. So with this, I would like to thank all of you and and look forward to connecting with you again next quarter. Thank you.
Thank you. On behalf of B&K Securities, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect your line.