Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to Gujarat Fluorochemicals Limited Q4 FY 2023 Earnings Conference call hosted by Batlivala & Karani Securities India Private Limited. 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. To make your systems during the conference call, please indicate your presence by pressing star then zero on your touchtone phone. Please note that the conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Archit Shah from Batlivala & Karani Securities India Private Limited. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you. Good evening, everyone, and thank you for joining the Q4 FY23 and FY23 earnings conference call of Gujarat Fluorochemicals. We thank the management on behalf of B&K Securities for giving us the opportunity to host this call. We have with us today Dr. Vivek Jain, CEO, Mr. Bir Kapoor, Head of Projects and New Initiatives, Mr. Manoj Agrawal, Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Viddesh Agarwal , Head of Investor Relations. Without further ado, I request Dr. Vivek Jain to begin with his opening remarks after which we'll have the floor open for questions. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you, Archit Shah. Good evening, everyone. This is Vivek Jain. A very warm welcome to all of you on this GFL's quarter four FY 2023 and FY 2023 annual earnings call. The company announced its quarter four results at its board meeting held today. The results, along with the earnings presentation, is available on the stock exchange and also on your website. I'll briefly touch upon the numbers and then give you an update on the business operations and future outlooks. The company reported a consolidated revenue of INR 5,685 crore for the year ended March 2023, and INR 1,471 crore for the quarter ending March 2023, which is up by 44% and 27% respectively on year-on-year basis. Consolidated EBITDA for FY 2023 was INR 2,047 crore.
For Q4 FY 2023, it was INR 529 crore, up by 71% and 60% respectively on year-on-year basis. The EBITDA margins continue to remain healthy and close to 26% for FY 2023 and for Q4 FY 2023 as well. Consolidated PAT for FY 2023 was INR 1,323 crore. For Q4 FY 2023, this was INR 332 crore, up by 71% and 52% respectively on year-on-year basis. ROT and ROE improved to 34% and 27% for the financial year 2023, and 24.5% and 20.1% for FY 2022 respectively. The net debt to EBITDA ratio has reduced to 0.23. It has been an extremely satisfying and a rewarding year for us.
We are happy with our efforts, the same is showcased in the numbers. We have been investing in capacity building, which will reap rich dividend for us. In the recent years, our focus has been on new fluoropolymers, where we are adding capacity to almost 1,300 to 1,500 tons by quarter one of the current financial year. As with most of investments, the new CapEx that we put in takes almost a year post-commercialization to realize the full potential in revenue terms. The new capacity would give us optimum revenue by FY 2023 when it will be fully utilized. Similarly, in the battery chemicals CapEx, what we are putting in now should realize the full revenue after almost a year when it's commercialized.
This year and the year after, we expect the growth to be fueled by new fluoropolymers, and we are already in the process of commercializing our new growth driver, which is battery chemical segment. This should help us maintain the healthy growth for the next few years. We are building this large chemical company from India, which is competing with global giants and now primarily focusing on the sunrise industry sectors, be it EV, solar, hydrogen, 5G in telecom, semiconductors, and energy storage systems, among others. As we are export-oriented, especially in our fluoropolymer segments, the global macro environment play a major role in our business environment. Let me quickly take you through the performance of each of our business segments for the quarter. To begin with, let me talk about the bulk chemicals.
This segment has seen a quarter-on-quarter revenue decline of 17%, which is primarily led by the drop in the prices, which is in line with our view of the prices due to pressure due to additional supply in the market. Our fluorochemical segment has done well, mainly on account of the refrigerants. Going forward, we expect the refrigerant to be slightly subdued in Q1 FY 2024, and the new fluorochemical plants are gradually ramping up production and expected to contribute to increased revenue in the upcoming quarters. In the fluoropolymer business, the volumes have remained stable during the quarter. However, prices have corrected marginally. In addition to the debottlenecking of ETFE capacity, creation of new additional capacities of new fluoropolymers are on course.
We have some plant shutdowns during quarter one. We expect the demand fundamentals for fluoropolymers to be continued to be robust because of growing demand from new and emerging sectors. Let me now briefly touch upon the future growth drivers. The fluoropolymer segments should keep providing us the growth momentum. Beyond the current capacities that we are in, we are optimistic on new fluoropolymers like PVDF, CFA, HM, that are critical for the industries like EV, solar, and semicon. In battery chemical space, we are looking at the entire bouquet of battery chemicals, including electrolytes. We expect to get our electrolyte plant to get commercialized by quarter two of this financial year. We are working with major battery manufacturers to provide them with electrolyte matching their requirement. This segment is progressing well and as per our plans.
We are continuing to look forward and focus on potential long-term growth drivers. As communicated earlier, we are progressing well on some of the new development areas like ECM for hydrogen fuel cells and electrolyzers. We expect to build the new business based on these developments in near future. With the growth opportunities before us, we are also strengthening our infrastructure for future growth, including new sites for future expansion. I would like to emphasize that with emerging sunrise sectors in energy transition space and semicon growth, we see a substantial opportunity for fluoropolymers, fluoromaterials, and New Age chemicals. We are well prepared in terms of the product portfolio as well as capacity building capability to capture this growth opportunity. I would like to thank you all and would like to open the floor for question and answer.
Thank you very much. We will now begin with the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star then 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 handset while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. We take the first question from the line of Mr. Harsh Shah from HSBC Mutual Fund. Please go ahead, sir.
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity. Congratulations on great quarter and a strong year end. My first question is on the business mix. If you see your fluoropolymers division, earlier you used to see the mix between ETFE, evaluated and the new fluoropolymers. I think QFY twenty, it was almost 46% of the business, and even in this quarter end, it is 49% of the business. The mix has not changed a lot, which is, means the fluorochemicals as a business has grown quite rapidly from almost an 18%, 20% business mix to now almost one third of the business. A large part of that has to do with Ref-gas prices picking up.
My first question is, what is the visibility or what is the outlook on Ref-gas, for next year and how, like, where do you see the business mix, changing next year?
Yes, Harsh. Thanks for your question. The way we see it now is that we expect the Ref-gas prices to remain stable. The demand may appear to be little bit subdued in Q1 FY 2024. Our prices we expect to remain stable going forward. Okay. You are right. The revenue which is coming in the vertical of fluorochemical is primarily contributed by the Ref-gas. That's what the previous quarters of this year that we have seen.
In terms of next year, Right now, I think Q4, 15% is chemicals, 1/3 is fluorochemicals, and 50% is fluoropolymers of your business. How do you see the business mix shaping up for next year? I mean, it's okay if it moves here and there because from pricing. In general, where do you see the business going up?
Yeah, we, as I said in my opening statement, we are focusing in the coming years, this year and as well as next year, our growth is going to come from fluoropolymers primarily, due to investment that we have made in this sector. We expect the fluoropolymer revenue to go up. There's a marginal correction here and there, which we expect because of the pricing which is corrected marginally from its peak position in the earlier quarter. We expect the fluoropolymer segment to grow as we go along.
Understood. My second question is, can you just help us understand the breakup of your CapEx for next year? How much of CapEx is going into what capacity? Also the timeline of commissioning of the projects? That will be really helpful.
Harsh, we would... It's difficult for me to answer the specific question on capacity. On the CapEx, this year, our CapEx plan is very close to 1,300 crores, 1,500 crores in the coming year, out of which, we are looking at close to 1,000 crores in fluoropolymers and battery chemical space. The capacities, what we are talking about, I will not comment on that, but these investments will lead to the capacity within fluoropolymers like FPM, PFA and PVDF. We expect most of these capacities to come online by Q1 and Q2. The capacity utilization which will reflect in revenue will take several quarters from there on because it takes... It's a long cycle of product development and then eventually they get capacity utilized.
We expect to see that, in FY 25 fully utilized.
That was very helpful. Just last thing, in terms of margin, where do you see margin stabilizing for us going forward? Hopefully our FY 24, if I remove the seasonality or quarter movement, from an FY 24, where do you see the margin coming from here?
Harsh, we have always said that, you know, our target is to have margin around 30%, and we expect this to continue at 30% plus. This is what we follow.
Understood. Thank you very much for answering all the questions. Thank you and all the very best.
Thanks, Harsh. Thank you.
Thank you. We take the next question from the line of Sanjesh Jain from ICICI Securities. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, sir. Thanks for taking my questions. I have a few of them. First on the ramp of the new fluoropolymer. I think we added new capacity in Q3 and Q4. We are planning to add few more capacity in next quarter, if I understand right from your previous statement. As I look at the fluoropolymer revenue growth over last three quarters, it has broadly remained stable. I understand there is some amount of price decline. How should one do the ramp and considering the capacity we have added, at the peak, what should be the fluoropolymer revenue, assuming that the prices remains to be at this level? I know we cannot say control on prices.
Assuming the prices remain where they are today, what will be the peak revenue from the capacity which you have booked and which you're putting up in next quarter? All put together, what should the revenue peak be? That's my first question.
Thanks, Sanjesh. Thanks for your question. First of all, it's difficult to give the number of revenue because it depends on prices. However, as you said that, we are seeing the same pricing as in now working, we see where will it keep going. We see almost, as you said, our growth is going to come from fluoropolymers, which is approximately 20% from where we are. That's why we see INR 1,000 crores plus going in fluoropolymers and the capacity get fully utilized.
INR 1,000 crores plus per quarter?
This is for the annual I said, not per quarter.
No, no, we are already at INR 700 crore in the fluoropolymer, as we see in this quarter, right? INR 720 odd crore of fluoropolymer revenue this quarter.
Yes, sorry, I misunderstood, Sanjesh. It's going to be from the quarter perspective, it'll at least cross INR 1,000 crores. INR 1,000-1,200 crores in fluoropolymer.
INR 1,000-1,200 crores of quarterly revenue will be returned to profit with all the capacities which we intend, and this will be visible in the FY 2025 as the ramp up will take the time. That's how I understand it.
This also what you should look at is, the current capacity that we have today. Today we have almost at 1,100 odd tons per month, okay. This will go up to, as we guided earlier, to 1,300-1,400 in Q1. There's further addition happening throughout the year. Accordingly, next year the ramp up will happen and the revenue will go up.
We cannot guide anything further than that. You could build up as 1,100 today going up to 1,300-1,500 per Q1. By end of that year, you should be in the ballpark figure of 1,800-1,900 tons per month.
Fair enough. Fair enough.
Polymers.
Under core polymers. The PPA capacity addition of 5,000 metric ton of the debottlenecking which we were planning, when should that come?
That should come probably by the end of, mid of this year, from third quarter of this financial year.
Okay. Q3 of this financial year. Do we plan to add more on the PPA because, three more opportunities still remains there.
What's happening in PEM, Sanjesh, is that, you know, they will remain in operations till the end of 2024.
Correct.
25. Actual capacity volumes going out to the market is still almost one and a half year away. What our expectation is that although we are seeing some tailwinds in terms of, you know, customer approach and product qualification level, you'll see its impact on our volume probably from the beginning of next year.
Are we planning to add more capacity on PPA in future? Or no.
Sanjesh, we can always add, but, we'll see how the business progresses. That's all we can say.
Got it. On the battery chemicals side, one of the peer has announced a partnership with a Japanese company, on making solution, and it looks like they're progressing to add a very large capacity on electrolytic solution. How are we looking at on battery chemical business both from the electrolyte salt as well as solution business? How prepared are we to capitalize on this opportunity?
As I said in my opening statement that we are very well poised. In fact, we are very well prepared. Our electrolyte plant would be ready in Q2. Also we are at the final stages of commissioning of our salt plant. I think we are very well positioned to capture that. We'll have our own electrolyte plant and we'll be engaging with customers and fulfilling their requirement based on the formulation provided by them.
When should we see the revenues coming for battery chemical? Will it be in 2024 or will it be in 2025?
We expect the revenue mostly to come in 2025 because the qualification time in battery chemicals is very long, Sanjesh.
Okay.
Sometime it could be almost, you know, four to six months because it's a sector where qualification times are very long. Full, in terms of impact on the revenue battery chemical, I'd probably start seeing it from the next financial year.
Two quick question, last on my side. One on the caustic chloro meeting, we had a 17% sequential decline. On this, did we have any long-term contract benefit and the full impact of the lower prices we will see in the next quarter? If or you can just help us understand what is the existing month revenue annualized? Do you think it's about around a INR 50 crore kind of decline from these levels adjusting to the current prices? That's number one. Number two, on the net debt, sequentially, despite, as you're referring to INR 150 crore from the related party, the net debt seems to be flattish on a year-over-year basis. The working capital looks like has again increased a little bit.
We have improved from the previous year, but this quarter it again looks like we have increased. How should one look at the deleveraging of the balance sheet from the net debt perspective? These are two questions. Thank you.
Let me answer, Sanjesh, the first part of your question, which is related to bulk chemical, caustic, et cetera. As far as the pricing are concerned, we believe that the pricing is pretty much at the bottom level and don't expect it to go down further. We don't have any long-term contracts, so we do not see any impact in terms of... We'll probably be following the market, whatever way, however it goes. We do not expect it to go down further.
Okay.
Coming back to your second question regarding, you know, deleveraging the balance sheet and the question on the working capital. I'll invite Manoj Agrawal to answer that question please.
Yeah. Hi, Sanjesh. On the working capital side, if you remember, we were saving up around 155 days of working capital, which we have brought it down to 120 days, which has now got increased up to around 8 days, again to 128 days. This is essentially because of lag effect of the inventories which we are building up for the new capacity and sometime, just a new sales in the new regions and new customers, which will be because of that only. We expect that it will as the sales picks up from all these new product profile and new customer profile, it will we'll be able to contain it again at the same level. The target remains at 120 days.
Got it. Got it. One last question. Sorry. On the pricing side on the Chloromethane, we have seen slight decline. This is more to do with the lower demand in Europe, so the prices are falling down, or it's more of lower power price and the input cost falling. What has driven the sequential drop in the Chloromethane prices?
The history fluoropolymers were at the peak and the very high prices, and there's some marginal correction that is going on. From the volume perspective, we do not see much of an impact. Okay, which is again, since there are some issues also may be there here and there. Other than that, we don't see much of a...
Do you simply expect more price with current volume, or how is it? We talked about prices is very high.
I See, there might be a minor correction, but we don't see a very significant deviation from where we are. Again, it depends from product to product. The fluoropolymer itself is a very large bouquet, and there are polymer which are for very high-end applications and versus polymer which are. It depends on the. Overall, as a bouquet, we do not see it changing very much. There's a marginal correction going forward.
Got it. Thank you, sir. Thank you for answering all my questions and the team for the presentation.
Thanks, Sanjesh. Thank you.
Thanks, sir.
Thank you, sir. We'll take next question from the line of Mr. Rohit Nagraj from Centrum Broking . Go ahead, sir.
Hello. Hello.
Yeah.
Mr. Nagraj, your voice is breaking up, sir.
Uh, can-
Sir Rohit, your line is breaking up, sir. Are you able to hear me?
Is this better?
Yes, sir.
Yeah. My first question is on the guarantees part. We have received the advances. How about the guarantees? A similar aspect from the balance sheet perspective, the other current assets have gone down from about INR 1,000 crores to INR 600 crores. I believe that since we have received the money, probably it has gone down. What are the leftover non-current assets of those INR 600 crores? Thank you.
See as related to guarantee, as far as guarantee is concerned, we have already started pulling it down, reducing it down on quarter-on-quarter basis. See, we are well on track and we see that reduction on continuous basis, you know, as we go along. As regard to your quality of guarantees also, it is never got invoked or triggered. That is one more point you need to note. We should not much worry about the quantum of the back end guarantee. That is one. As regard to your other current assets, there is a bouquet of actually items, number of items, so that I can tell you afterwards. You want me to work out separately?
Sure. Thank you. Second question is on the electrolytes, salt and electrolytes. Based on current capacity and pricing, what is the kind of peak revenue potential that we envisage from the electrolyte salts?
See, the, Rohit, it's again a sort of difficult to answer because we already indicated capacities on the salt earlier. Mainly because if you look at today, the lithium prices, because the salt prices are linked to lithium prices. Okay. There has been a very significant change, and there's a lot of volatility in salt prices. Okay. It's anywhere from $13-$45, and it was almost at the peak, you know, $60. It's a very large volatility, so it would be very difficult for me to answer the future, you know, revenue expectation from this. It all depends on the lithium prices.
Right, sir. Thanks a lot. I'll come back in the queue. Thank you.
Thank you very much. We'll take the next question from the line of Mr. Viraj Shah from Edelweiss. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity. Sir, my question was, if I look at the consolidated cash flow statement, the capital expenditure comes out to INR 675 crores, whereas in the presentation that number is close to INR 3,050 crores. Is the differential of INR 675 crores largely the transfer from advances to CWIP for the wind project, or is there something else? How should we look at that?
If you look at the final computation of cash flow, it was to the negative capital advances. Any decrease in capital advances is an actual CapEx outlay. Actual CapEx outlay is INR 1,350 roughly. Net of capital advances which we introduced because of receipt of payment from wind is INR 625 crores. That is negative reflected in the cash flow statement.
Would it be fair to say that INR 675 crores were towards the wind and INR 675 crores was towards all of the fluorochemicals and fluoropolymers? Is that the right way to see it?
Yes.
Okay. In the coming year, out of the INR 1,500 crores of CapEx that we've guided, how much would be towards wind and how much would be towards the other chemical business?
No wind in this. This is.
Out of the advance environment.
Oh, out of the advances which we have made as repaid of around INR 16,000 crore. The residual advantage which we have already taken in our earlier CapEx run, which will be added to the future financial year is mostly on the chemical side.
Okay. Okay, sure. Yeah. Thank you so much. Yeah.
Thank you. We'll take the next question from the line of Mr. Anshul Gupta from Prabhudas Lilladher. Please go ahead, sir.
Yeah. Hi, sir. Congratulations on another spectacular quarter and finishing off the year so well. My first question is that the media has recently commented on a path-breaking invention in membrane technology, which is expected to reduce the production cost of green hydrogen. This was at the CSIR-CGCRI at Howrah. I just wanted to know what role will GFL solar and green hydrogen products play in this?
Yeah. I would request Mr. Soni to answer this, please.
You see, we have our GFCL is working on two types of proton exchange membranes, PEM. One is for electrolyzers, which is a sulfuric acid membrane, and the other one is for fuel cell. The effort is to reduce the cost of the electrolyzer membrane, because that contributes largely to green hydrogen output. There we are working very actively with another Indian institute to develop it. I understand that there has been some transfer of technology for whatever transacted amount. Does that mean that essentially now this technology belongs to us? Yeah. Actually, we have a transfer of technology from ONGC, and that is on the lab scale, and we are now developing it further on pilot scale, and thereafter on prototype commercial scales. We have the full rights for it.
That means, we will be now present in 2 of the 4 forms of green hydrogen manufacturing. Am I right? Which are the 4 ones you said? I understand, sir, there's PEM fuel cell, and there are 2 other forms of green hydrogen manufacturing. Essentially this particular technology transfer is for green hydrogen through fuel cell and as well as, we already exist in the PEM. No, actually, I'll explain again. There are only 2 applications of PEM. One is for electrolyzer, for making green hydrogen, and other is for mobility sector, for converting the hydrogen into... by using fuel cell for creating electricity. We are in both the sectors. In one sector we have tied up with ONGC, the other sector we developed our own technology. Got it, sir.
My second question was specifically for the LiPF6.
Yeah.
Is it possible to give us some timeline with respect to, you know, where we are on the lab trials, where we are on validation with customers and, actually the out of commercial output you mentioned that, in the introduction?
Anshul, in basic chemicals in salts, we had stated earlier that we are going to be a fully commercial salt plant, which is at the final stages of commissioning. In fact, mechanical commissioning is almost done. Which we expect the salt will come out in next 3 months, essentially by quarter two. Then after that, the salt will go for validation and qualification stage. We are not going to the lab stage, first of all. Okay? We have gone and decided to go ahead and straightaway go for the commercial scale. With the commercial scale plant, get it qualified and start getting into the mode of supplying it. This has been our approach. Depending on the qualification period, how it gets ramped up, we will see.
We expect the commercial phase probably will happen by the third or fourth quarter of this year, essentially.
Oh, that's very encouraging, sir. Just a little bit of similar detail maybe on the solar PVDF back panels and the CFA semiconductor?
We are already going through the sort of a qualification stage on both of them. In terms of the PVDF films, which is for the solar, we expect to get our plant commissioned by quarter two, and then we'll be making a commercial level sheet for this application. Okay. Anything you want to add?
Yes, very good.
CFS semiconductor is, we have already developed the product and it's again going through the various stages of qualifications.
Solar you said Q2 of the current year, right?
Financial year. Yes.
Yes. The current financial year. Great. Great, sir. Thank you so much. All the best, and, I look forward to the next interaction, sir.
Anshul, with CFA, with semiconductor qualification happening, we are also, it's part of our new polymer portfolio where we are adding capacity in CFA as well in this, next few quarters.
Oh, that's great to know, sir. That's great. Thanks.
Thanks.
Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, in order to ensure that the management is able to address questions from all participants in the conference, please limit your question to two per participant. If you have a follow-up question, we would request you to rejoin the question queue. We take the next question from the line of Mr. Aman Vij from Asit C. Mehta Investment Management. Please go ahead, sir.
Yeah. Good afternoon, sir. My first and second question is on the new fluoropolymer side. We have added almost 300-400 tons per month capacity in the last 1 year. In terms of utilization, I think it's still lacking. It's maybe at 60%-70% utilization only. If you can talk about, is there some kind of business slowdown in the last 3 quarters that we have not planned up because we have enough capacity compared to what we are doing. As well as the question also on the PFA for semiconductor , current PVDF EV. When can we see some revenues coming in from these two products? Is it this year or next year in the FY 2023?
Coming back to fluoropolymer capacity, again, these are capacity addition has been in the fluoropolymers. As we had stated earlier that the revenue potential of these new capacities will take some time as it gets certified. This process is little bit complicated because there are these are sort of very specific application where our products are developed and qualified by customers and then orders are placed. We expect these capacities to be fully utilized by the end of this financial year. Coming back to your second question was related to PVDF. PVDF, you said which application? What you asking about battery application?
Yes, yes. PVDF degree as well as PFA for semiconductor , when will we see them contributing to our revenue? I mean, scale, sir.
We have products which are developed, okay. Again, we are going through the qualification stage. Even PVDF for EV sector also, there are multiple grades. It's not one single grade. There are different types of PVDF polymer, and we have capability to develop those. We have developed it, and it's going through the qualification process. Unfortunately, the qualification period is very long. Okay.
Mm-hmm.
For 1 cycle it's almost 6 months. That's the situation.
Do you expect this to contribute in FY 2024 or FY 2025 only, these two products?
No, I think the qualification will complete by this financial year, in both of these products. In fact, PSA, it might happen much earlier. In PVDF, I think, particularly in the EV application, 6 months approximately from now, and then
My second question is on the 2 parts. You talked about there will be a shutdown in Q1. If you can quantify, is this in PFPE or new fluoropolymer, and is it like 10%-20% shutdown, or is it like major capacities won't be there? For how many months, if you can talk about that.
It's not a major, few months. It's mainly in PFPE, and because it's like annual shutdown that we do for PFPE. We just wanted to sort of assure our investors earlier, PFPE shutdown in this PFPE only, not fluoropolymers.
Yeah. On the refrigerant gas, you have talked about little subdued demand in Q1. Again, is it like high 10% kind of subdued or is it 20%, 30% kind of subdued demand?
You know, refrigerant gases are a cyclical business, and it depends a lot on the weather condition. Looking at, you saw the temperatures in Delhi lately and even all over India. I think overall the demand depends a lot on the weather conditions. We expect the demand to be slightly subdued. It's difficult for me to comment, but probably, I think it's 10% maybe. I do not know. This is something which is for us to estimate. It depends on more over the weather conditions.
Sorry. You are talking mostly on domestic front. Exports currently demand is still okay on refrigerants?
Also it is, demand is slightly subdued, not significantly. That I think is partly seasonal also.
Sure. These are my questions. Thank you.
Thank you. Participants, we request everybody to please limit your questions to participants. We take the next question from the line of Mr. Nitin Zutti from DAM Capital Advisors. Please go ahead, sir.
Hi. Thank you for this opportunity. So my question is whether in Arkema's results declared yesterday, they've indicated a rapid normalization of PVDF prices in battery from last year with current prices. Also another large global player, Dongyue Group partner said that prices of PVDF are unable to maintain at the elevated level. So there is a size of our inaudible I presume they will be taking into consideration the various grades and applications of the polymers. However, what I gather is, you know, we are not seeing sharp decline in PVDF prices going forward. I'm just wondering if, you know, that could happen, whether our profitability could be lower than what, you know, what we are indicating. I mean, could this % margin guidance, you know, get challenged?
Is what my question is?
See, the thing is that right now, globally the EV chemicals as well as the PVC prices are pretty much dependent on the China market. China is today the world's largest market of battery chemicals and EV batteries. China demand has been subdued, and there has been a slowdown in sales in China, and that essentially is reflected in terms of the overall price situation that you see. In our case, we are not significantly affected at the moment, because our EV capacity, PVC capacity to come up after the qualification by end of this year and early first quarter next year.
Coming back to the pricing key, we think that this is strictly a momentary because there's long value chains and, you know, the industry may have... The EV is on a growth path, and it depends on how which part of the value chain comes faster versus later. I think this is a, maybe a short-term phenomena, which is expected to get better as demand improves in, of EV in China and EV capacity comes from every other places.
Oh, yeah. Thank you so much.
Thanks, Nitin. Thank you.
Thank you, sir. We'll take the next question from the line of Mr. Rohan Gupta from Nomura. Please go ahead, sir.
Good evening. Congratulations on strong set up number. First is that, our understanding is generally what we have seen is that from the product development, then you go to qualification, and then you go towards the ramp-up phase and finally commercialization. Generally, the timeline here involved into the qualifications and product development and ramp up and commercialization finally takes 2-3 years and even sometimes it takes more. Even you have seen in your journey also in PVC it has taken a long time. In case of battery salt we're talking about that we are almost executing or we have already probably developed the product, but we are sitting in the ramp-up part and directly going to the commercialization.
Again, from the qualification perspective also we are talking about the customer qualification will be as small as maybe four to six months, and we are expecting the revenue to ramp by end of this year. After that plan commercialize, commercialization happening in Q2 or Q3. What is giving us this confidence that we will be able to ramp up this battery chemicals and will be so fast? I mean, given our learning curve, what has changed in this industry from insights from that front?
Rohan, these applications are very different because if I look at, let's say our fluoropolymer experience or fluoropolymers, they are very small applications and each of these application has a certain volume, limited volume. In contrast, lithium salt or the battery salt is different. Thank you. Once it's qualified, the requirement for each plant is very large. The customer's intake is very large. If somebody is having a factory capacity, let’s say of, you know, 5 gigawatt hour or 2 gigawatt hour, the requirements are very large. It's overall a different kind of application, different set of requirements. For example, the kind of one customer can take, you know, certain quantities, you know, say 5,000 ton of battery chemical.
You will not find any customer taking 5,000 tons of very specialized fluoropolymer.
You are seeing that basically the confidence is coming. If you are able to crack one customer, then from himself his requirement will be pretty large. Have you got any kind of indications or you are still in the qualification round only? Have you getting the earlier initiating in earlier signs of product getting approved and that's what that as soon as you commercialize your plant and you will, you have to ramp up the production immediately?
See the situation, Rohan, is that, yes, we are talking to all the players, unfortunately they still do not have a material or samples with us. Obviously the question of the INR millions comes from once he has a, you know, material with us and also it gets qualified. Our confidence primarily is coming from the growth in this sector. If you look at our capacity, which is very, very small compared to the growth number that we are talking about and either globally or even domestic numbers. There's going to be significant growth in this sector. That's where our confidence is coming from. Even after commercialization and full capacity utilization, our volumes and the capacity are going to be significantly small compared to the overall market potential.
Over.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much.
Thank you, sir. We'll take the next question from the line of Mr. Ravi Naredi from the Naredi Investment . Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you for giving me this opportunity. Sir, can we think a good time for fluoro industry going to end as too much new plants and capacity are coming?
Sorry, I did not get your question, Ravi. What do you think of fluoropolymers, fluorochemicals?
Good time for fluorochemical industry going to end as too much new plants are coming.
I don't think so, because as I said earlier, there are entire space of energy transition that we are talking about, whether it's hydrogen economy, EV, solar cells, fuel cells, each of these applications have requirement for fluoro materials.
Okay.
I do not see, if you look at the numbers and compare, the projections for the transition is very high. We do not see that happening.
Okay. sir, New Age vertical, the electric vehicle battery plant. We are going to install, how much CapEx?
Hello?
Which vertical electric vehicle battery plant.
Yes. Yes, sorry.
How much CapEx we need?
Look, for, I cannot answer that question about the batteries, what CapEx is required. Right now, for battery chemicals, it depends on what chemical, what capacity we go. For the capacity that we have announced, we have already indicated, for fluoropolymers and battery chemicals, our CapEx is going to be close to INR 1,000 crore this year.
Okay. Thank you. All the best.
Thanks. Thanks, Ravi.
Thank you. Participants, a reminder to all of you, please limit your question to two per participant. Should you have a follow-up question, we request to rerun the question to you. Okay. Mr. Ravi Grover from HDFC
Hello. Am I audible?
Yes, sir. Please go ahead.
Yes, sir. As you mentioned in earlier conversation, it seems MIA-oxime could get likely to contribute from FY 2025, right? And considering that plants shut down in Q1 FY 2024 and some price corrections which likely to begin in Q2, can we assume, like, FY 2024 likely to be muted or falling one from the levels of FY 2023? Like our base is quite high now as compared to earlier years, sir. Hello?
Yeah. I think somewhere, we have been misinterpreted. I think we gave a sense that our FY 2024 is going to be... We have always maintained that our top line is expected to grow by 20%. I expect that the number, as we indicated earlier, for example, these capacities when choose, say, INR 1,000 crores-INR 700 crores to top line will continue.
No, I was talking about the bottom line expectations.
Bottom line is also, you know, we have been maintaining a fairly healthy margin. We said that it will probably be around 30%, which we expect to continue with.
Okay, understood. Second thing, sir, do you see any kind of lack of demand from lithium-ion chemical side? Like, I think, in earlier calls we expect to get the revenues from our battery plant from FY 24, right?
Probably as we said earlier, that we have indicated that our capacities would come, which is on course and which we expect to get from the salt as well as Methanol. Our capacity will come on line, particularly in quarter two. Then there's a qualification period. By the end of this financial year or probably by quarter four, we started shipping the battery chemicals.
Okay. Top line and bottom line, both will continue to grow, in FY 2024 onward, right?
Yes.
That's all. That is all my, myself. Thank you, sir.
Thanks. Thank you.
Thank you, sir. We'll take the next question from the line of Mr. Yash Shah from Investec. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Thank you for the opportunity. My first question was regarding the PFAS. We had earlier mentioned that we are going to completely transition by the end of calendar year 23. Wanted to understand what is the current status right now. Yeah. How many products have been accepted by the customers?
Yeah. I'll let Mr. Soni answer that one for me.
Regarding the transition from fluorinated polymerization aids to non-fluorinated polymerization aids, we have already converted almost more than 80% of all our fluoropolymers into non-fluorinated polymerization aids. We expect by end of this financial year, we should be achieving almost complete conversion.
Have the products been accepted by the customers?
Already, few products which have been converted have been in the market for several months now.
Got it, sir. Sir, my second question was regarding our electrolyte business, our battery chemical business. You mentioned earlier that we will commercialize instead of the lab scale and skip the lab scale part. For commercialization, we will require a significant quantity of lithium carbonate. We had earlier mentioned that we had the tie-up with... Sorry, we had basically appointed EY as a consultant. What is the status on that at this point in time? Because we will, as you understand, we will require a significant amount of lithium carbonate. Some light on that, sir.
I think, you know, when we talk about the lithium carbonate procurement, there's a short term versus the long term. In the short term, of course, activities are not much and our requirements are not much, we, you know, we have been already discussing with EY and connecting with some of the global suppliers for tie-ups in the long term. That has not yet completely closed, in terms of short term, we have the required volumes for our local, our short-term requirement has already been tied up. We do not see any issue with that.
It's safe to assume that the short-term supply will be enough to ramp up your electrolyte salt business, right?
Do not see that as an issue.
Okay. Okay. Got it. Sir, last one, clarification question from my end. I'm sorry if I missed it earlier. What is the quantum of guarantee left, from Inox Wind?
Yeah. I'll let Manoj, he'll answer that. I think it was... Quantum of guarantee.
I don't have that number, sir. It's readily available with me. After the call we will.
You can connect Yash with Manoj.
We will get you.
Perfect. Perfect, sir. Thank you very much.
Thanks a lot, Yash. Thank you.
Thank you, sir. We'll take the next question from the line of Mr. Rahul Vira from Abacus. Please go ahead, sir.
Hello. Rahul. In our notes to accounts, there has been one of the points which mentioned that there is a ethical commission which is supposed to be discussed during our AGM for some executive, non-executive directors. may we know what exactly the commission is for and who is the non-executive director?
This is part of our, which is part of the remuneration which is paid to the MD and chairman. As a part of the secretarial procedure that has to be put before the approval at AGM also. That's what that process is given.
Okay. Very nice, sir. Thank you.
Thanks, Rahul. Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question for the day. I would now like to hand the conference call to the management for closing comments.
Yeah, thanks a lot. I would like to thank all of you for showing interest in GFL and asking questions. Any further questions, I would request all of you to please be in touch with our communication person, Mr. Vidhun Agarwal . I'd like to thank you all once again. Thanks, Chip.