Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Vikas Singh from PhillipCapital (India) Private Limited. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to Jindal SAW Phone Call. Today from the management side, we have with us Mr. Neeraj Kumar, Group CEO and Whole Time Director, Mr. Vinay Gupta, President and Head of Treasury, and Mr. Narendra Mantri, President, Commercial, and CFO. Without taking any more time, I'll hand over the mic to Mr. Neeraj Kumar for his opening remarks. Over to you, sir.
Good afternoon, friends. Mr. Rajeev Goel, who is the Assistant Treasurer in Vinay's team, he's also joining us and assisting us over the call. Welcome, friends, to our annual investor call. This year is one more time of best result over the last years, which was then the best ever result. So we have now done twice in a row a best ever last year to top it up a best ever this year. And on few parameters, this year the result has been significant. Let me just take you through the highlights of some of the numbers. I'll very quickly run through the numbers because I'm sure all of you would have seen the detailed note which has been circulated by all. So to start with, standalone first: top line INR 18,233 crores, EBITDA INR 3,226 crores, PBT INR 2,188 crores, and PAT INR 1,614 crores.
Compared to last year, top line INR 15,704, EBITDA INR 1,630, PBT INR 938, PAT INR 715. Everywhere you can see, it's a, it's a breakaway. It's a significant improvement. Likewise, if you look at the consolidated, top line INR 21,126 this year as compared to last year's INR 18,061, EBITDA INR 3,489 as compared to INR 1,857 last year, PBT INR 2,216 this year as compared to INR 745 last year, PAT INR 1,593 this year as compared to INR 452 last year. Similar, significant trend.
One thing important to point out, Jindal SAW contributes around 85% of revenue in the consolidated, 7% EBITDA. 7% EBITDA is by subsidiaries, so 92%, 92.5% EBITDA. And subsidiaries contribute 1.26% of profit. So pretty much 98.75% consolidated profit comes actually from Jindal SAW. So this gives us two clear indications. A, the subsidiaries are all now positively contributing, but in comparison to Jindal SAW, they are still a relatively smaller player.
Also, you would have seen after the merger and the restructuring reorganization that we have done, we have pretty much left with now three major subsidiaries, one JITF, which is from the NTPC region. Otherwise, there are hardly any operations there, but we are just keeping the barges, alive, running, at breakeven. We have an Abu Dhabi, which is 100% now, as allowed by the UAE government. And we have U.S., which is also, 100%. So U.S., Abu Dhabi, JITF, JITF for legal reasons, these two being part of our core business. All known core businesses are out. Also, if you look at the subsidiaries contribution, 15% on top line, 7.5% of EBITDA, and 1.25% of the profit, indicates that the subsidiaries profitability is still lagging behind what we have in Jindal SAW.
Jindal Saw, actually, if you look at the EBITDA margin, if you look at the PBT to sales, they all are now a breakaway. It is a breakaway from the trend that typically Jindal Saw was in the past. So you can say now it is a reset Jindal Saw, where we expect the EBITDA to be; earlier we were expecting it in the range of 15%. Now we expect it will be in the range of 16%-17%. Because there are a lot of initiatives that have been taken on cost control, on cost reduction, on innovation, on improvement, productivity. They are all now beginning to bear results. For example, now we have improved Coking Coal, we have improved the PCI, which is a performance improvement in the blast furnace. And all these tidbits are adding to the improvement in EBITDA.
Stainless steel is slowly moving towards more value add, so that improvement in it helps improve again the margin. The margin, Jindal SAW now it looks like, has moved away from its original band of 14-15 into 16-17. Another significant development that has happened, and it has happened in spite of NTPC still to reach its solution, the ROCE has improved. The ROCE is now in the range of 20. That is primarily because there has been a lot of management attention on managing the capital structure, the balance sheet items, the investments, and all of those. Now, if we look at the scenario where NTPC goes the way we are thinking it should go, once that comes, then again a very large chunk of investment from the balance sheet of Jindal SAW will go out. Plus, Jindal SAW will have a lot of cash.
So that could further improve the profitability, the quality, and the health of the Jindal SAW balance sheet. So all in all, it looks like we have entered a sweet spot. This should continue for some time. Now, turning my attention to a few other things, the order book is a robust $1.5 billion, out of which export is 30%, domestic 70%, industry distribution if you look at, oil and gas, roughly 30%, and, water sector 64%-65%, industrial 4%. We expect the industrial sector to catch up and grow further as our stainless business grows. I'm very happy to let you know that in our stainless, we have now successfully extruded 13 Chrome grades, which are very exotic, and we would be the only one in the country who would be able to do that. So order book very healthy.
We have a clear visibility of, first, order book execution capability, higher capacity utilization, improving on our yield and productivity. Plus, we have a very healthy sales funnel. We do see a lot of opportunities coming in because we also are a firm believer that the government is going to continue. So there would be a continuity of government, and we expect that the momentum of infra development, where water sector is one of the key areas where the government is focusing, that focus will continue. So, next, now 3-5 years, we do have certain confidence; we have certain visibility of good performance moving forward. The other area where a lot of attention has been given, and I have been talking about it quarter-on-quarter, is our debt. If you see that debt seems to go down.
March 24, we closed the total debt, means working capital, plus term loan, INR 4,688 crores, which included INR 1,000 crores that we had taken for the acquisition of Sathavahana. I'm very happy to announce that this year we are prepaying the entire loan of that INR 1,000 crores, even though it was an acquisition funding long term. Now we have a strategy in place where we want to prepay already the prepayment has started April onwards, and during this calendar year, we would prepay the entire INR 1,000 crores. This 4,600 would come down to 5,600, out of which the working capital would be, say, close to 2,000. Debt is one thing that we are and that is why if you see yesterday when we declared our dividend, proportionately, yes, there was an increase in dividend, 200%.
But if you look at in terms of the proportion to profit, it was not there, primarily because as a company, we believe that now is the time to conserve some cash, bring our debt down, bring down our interest costs, and improve the image and the credibility with the banks so that, you know, the organization is absolutely in good shape, good form, fantastic relationship with all our banks, financial institutions, and cost competitive, as I said, improve ROCE, improve dividend margin. So basically, now we are readying the company for the next big leap in terms of market capture, in terms of growth, and in terms of strategy. One thing that I must point out is that and we have briefly touched about it. Some of the subsidiaries, even though now they have gone profitable, there is some catch-up that they still have to do.
And also, there have been some extraneous factors. For example, if you look at the Abu Dhabi, or for that matter, U.S., the Q4 performance versus Q3 performance, there is a dip. The primary reason being, if you see the Israeli area has become a hotspot, which is kind of impacting Saudi, Iraq, and others. So the sentiment in that area, plus this time, Ramadan was in the month of March, plus a few of our major projects in some of the countries, they had a delayed start. In U.S., a similar situation, Q4 results, being less than Q3. But these are all temporary trends. We are seeing overall, a trend reversal in Abu Dhabi and U.S. So now we are confident this year the subsidiaries, even though they would continue to remain small in terms of the percentages, but would begin to contribute more.
The raw material prices, if you see, we expect them to move in a current band, iron ore, between 100-120, but we don't import any. Domestically, we are able to source iron ore at $80, $5,000-$6,000, which is a good thing for us. We expect we'll continue to do that. Coal will remain around 250, and that should continue at least for the next 6-8 months is what our understanding is. One thing that I wish to clear now to all my investors, if you see, we have taken an enabling provision of a QIP of INR 1,000 crore. I had even said then that all our investors who take keen interest in Jindal SAW, please look at our management style in multiple layers. Getting an enabling resolution is only preparing for different scenarios.
That doesn't necessarily mean that we have a transaction on the cards. So I had also said then it is only enabling. Now we have surplus cash. We are preparing even the debt of State Bank of India, INR 1,000 crore. And I can let you know that now it looks like the QIP may not happen. On the contrary, yesterday, we have taken again an enabling resolution from the board, and we are going to take it to the shareholders, INR 1,000 crore of a debt instrument. Now, again, please read it as the management thinking ahead, thinking in multiple directions, multiple dimensions, to orient itself, adjust itself, have an elbow room to move into different directions very quickly. Because in a developing market where now India is asserting itself to become a manufacturing hub, we have to be agile.
We have to be ready for, you know, plan A, plan B, plan C. So again, I'm letting you know we have taken board approval. But again, please don't jump to the conclusion that we are going to raise that money. It is an enabling resolution that we have kept. We are looking at how things are shaping up. We have been active in M&A. We have been active in capacity expansion, new markets, new products. So we continue to remain focused, remain very vigilant, and remain committed to doing good business, improving the fundamental health, health of the company, all the health. Moving forward, if you look at the industry outlook, I have already said we only expect, the Israeli conflict should not spill over and should not disrupt the Middle East.
It should not disrupt the Red Sea because that would impact our shipping to that part of the world. But for that, at least India, we see very healthy demand in industrial, in water, as well as in oil and gas. All three are doing very well. In industrial, we are making a lot of effort to enter areas like space through our stainless and chrome, oil and gas through our premium connections. Now the JV, JHESL, JV, is performing well. It's almost having full, full capacity utilization. Water, as I have already said, it is on top of the agenda as far as the government of India is concerned, which is likely to continue. We do see that now with the new government where there should be continuity.
We do expect a lot more alignment of thoughts, a faster economic growth, a consistent economic growth, and an all-round economic growth because the way the governments are coming out with the policies, the way they have set the target of 2047, even short-term targets. It looks like that government is going to be a bit more serious and come up with the economic policies which are much more aligned to growth. That's all good news for us because we are at the core of infrastructure development, and we'll continue to be there. I think I have covered most of the high-level things that I needed to.
Before I take questions, I would request some of the analyst participants, if you have a very granular, nitty-gritty question Mr. Rajeev Goel is here, he's taking notes, just identify yourself, and he would send you a mail because I may not have all the nitty-gritty questions, readily available, and we would rather like to answer you in full than to rely on my memory. With that, let me thank you all once again. Thank you for being with us. Thank you for being patient. I hope that now the capital market should be more aligned to the growth in our fundamental strength. We still believe that there is a lot of headroom because if you look at any of the other parameters which drive the market, there is a lot of upside still available. That is what we believe.
Even when we look at our peers, we do feel that fundamentally, we are much stronger, and the market has yet to give us, the full, you can say, reward for, what we have achieved over the last few years. So with that, let me stop. Thank you all very much. I will be happy to take a few questions.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on the touch-tone 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'll wait for a moment while the question queue assembles.
That's the final question.
We have our first question from the line of Rhea from Equirus. Please go ahead.
Congratulations and good set of numbers. My first question is in pertaining to the Abu Dhabi facility. So we are seeing the sales were.
Hold on, hold on. Come, would you please come closer? Speak a little slower in terms of your speed and louder so that I can be clear about it.
Sure. Congratulations on a good set of numbers. So I was asking in terms of a UA hello? Am I audible?
Yeah, you are asking in terms of?
Hello? Am I audible?
Yes, madam. I didn't complete your sentence. You are asking in terms of?
UA volumes, sales volumes for the quarter. So we are seeing a little decline. And as per your opening remarks, I said that.
I want to explain. Yes.
Yeah. Last quarter, the sales volume declined. However, in terms of order booking, we are seeing some good growth there. Where is the demand coming in from there? And, when do we see the situation getting better?
Madam, I have already covered all those three questions in my opening remark. But still, okay, let me repeat it again. Q4 in UAE was lower than Q3 . The reason being Israel, Ramadan, some projects getting delayed. I have already said Q1, there is a trend reversal, and it should go back to where it, where it belongs. This year, again, we do see that the overall volume should be higher than what we have achieved last year.
Got it. And in terms of other civil companies, they are saying that in terms of water projects, basically for DI, they're seeing decline in the projects. So are you seeing any such decline in the ordering activity in India specifically?
Okay. I don't know which companies you are talking about, but anyway, that's not important. On DI, now we have Samaghogha, we have Hares amudram. We are running full capacity both. We are optimizing our capacity by adding the balancing equipment where the capacity will be enhanced by about 10% or so. We have our hands full. We are booked for most of the year.
Got it. And hello? In terms of expansion, in terms of peers, we are seeing a lot of expansion plans announced by the companies, and in FY 2025 and/or the start of FY 2026, new capacities are coming on stream. So do you think that would be a situation of overcapacity?
No. The way we see it is they are all good news. The more, the merrier because in an oligopoly where if there are only a few players, sometimes the market can get skewed. So if you have more people coming into the market, it is always good news because anybody who makes an investment makes a very genuine assessment of the demand. And that reconfirms our faith in our assessment of the future and the demand. Second, a late comer always has a huge disadvantage in terms of entry barriers. This is not an easy market. So entry barriers, cost is an advantage. Already, they have to deal with a built relationship that we have. So we welcome competition, but we are confident of ourselves, and we don't see that as a threat anymore.
Got it.
As I told you, we are carrying out a lot of initiatives where we are optimizing our cost of production, which is already low, even further.
Yes. In terms of cost, cooking coal prices have gone down significantly. So are we going to pass on the decreased raw material prices?
See, cooking coal in our case will go down further because we are starting our new battery. If you have been following us, last two years, we have been working on getting absolutely brand new coal batteries. It is getting tested. It will get operational this year. That will have a further impact on the improvement of the power that we generate, which will have a cost saving because we don't sell power. But it does impact on the cost side. The cost of production will definitely go down. So it is going to have an impulsive impact. Now, how much to pass on to the market is a market strategy. What is the price that is available in the market? But we definitely are making much more capable. We are making ourselves much more capable to deal with any new capacities coming in in terms of our cost structure.
Otherwise, as you have already seen, our EBITDA margin has moved into a higher band and shall remain there.
Got it. That's it from me. So I'll join the queue for further questions.
Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Shweta Dikshit from Systematix Groups. Please go ahead. Ms. Shweta, are you there?
Hello.
Yes. Please go ahead with your questions.
Thank you, sir. Thank you for the opportunity, and congratulations on a good set of numbers. My first question is, could you provide any details of contribution from the Hunting JV since it began commercial production last quarter? So any, could you provide any number and outlook from the Hunting JV?
No. Hunting JV, it's a separate entity. When the results get published, consolidated, you can get to see that. Now, as far as we are concerned, as far as Jindal SAW Nashik is concerned, as you know, we have to have an arm's-length transaction. So the price at which we sell our pipes to the market will be the same price at which we will have to give the pipes to the JV. The only benefit that we would have, it will be a large order. It will be an order of next door, and it will be an order where we will have consistency. So we will have a portion of Jindal SAW Nashik 's capacity on our very certain footing because of the JV. So we have an advantage in terms of, severity, quantity, blockage, and in terms of price, it will have to be the same price.
It will have to be a constant price only.
So, you had previously mentioned that, because this is a complete import substitution product, and that would benefit you, in terms of increase in seamless pipe volumes as well since that will be like everything under one roof, kind of benefit. So are we seeing that happening? And how could you throw some light how the seamless pipe sales have moved this quarter?
The seamless, if you compare the previous year and the last year, last year, there was a marginal dip. But again, this year, we hope that it is going to pick up.
Okay.
But again, it will stabilize at a higher platform. See, what, what we are seeing is Jindal SAW three years back and Jindal SAW today, everything has moved to a higher platform where it looks like this is going to be the new real for Jindal SAW.
Okay. So my next question is, if we compare year-on-year basis, we've seen a significant jump in volumes of around 34% this year. But going forward, on the basis of better capacity utilization, what kind of volume growth are we expecting next year?
This year, 34% is primarily one of the reasons has been addition of Hares amudram. That is M&A. So you don't expect 34% year-on-year every year.
Of course.
It would be more modest. It would be more in the range of 10%-15%.
Okay. My next question is on the debt side. As you said that compared to peers, when we look at Jindal SAW, there's a lot of headroom for growth in terms of shareholder return, etc. But what would be your take on the short-term debt composition? Because if we look at the overall debt, is our working capital requirement relatively higher than our peers? And what could be the reasons behind that?
Okay. If you really look at a like-to-like comparison, which we do on a very granular basis, my working capital cycle is the best in the industry. So when you say a like-to-like comparison, I don't know how you are able to do a like-to-like comparison because who is my peer with whom you are comparing my working capital? When I do my individual working capital cycle segment-wise, which we do it for our internal benchmarking, we find it to be among the best. But I have repeated many times, I have explained many times, working capital, the way our industry is structured, trade finance runs parallel to our operations and would be a function of the turnover. So we have little control over how much of working capital that we need except for managing the efficiency of the working capital, managing the working capital cycle.
Because the more the turnover, the more the export, the more raw material I have to block, the more entries I'll open, the more working capital I'll use. So that's pretty much given. Term loan, we are going to bring it down. Already, if you see, my term loan today is less than INR 2,000. My EBITDA for the year is INR 3,200. So again, test it not just on aggregate amounts, test it on some of the performance parameters. And then you would see that we are very, very well within any kind of norm. We will pass any test on our debt control. You take either any ratio, take moving average, take debt coverage. You choose a parameter, national, international, whatever. And on debt side, we will cross all benchmarks.
Okay. Thank you so much, sir. That's it.
Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Darshil Jhaveri from Crown Capital. Please go ahead.
Hello. Good evening, sir. Firstly, heartiest congratulations on another record-setting week here. Hope I'm audible.
Yes.
Yeah. So, sir, just wanted to first my first question is, sir, any other new M&A activity that's on our outlook currently that, you know, we are looking at? That was my first question. And, sir, with terms of we are guiding maybe a volume growth of 10%-15%, so any revenue guidance for, you know, maybe FY 2025 that you would like to give, sir?
Okay. First, M&A, nothing in the near future.
Okay, sir.
volume growth, I have told you. Price is purely market-driven. I have already given you an indication that we expect the raw material prices to move in a band. That being the case, the top line also should move in a band subject to demand, supply, and opportunity. Beyond that, it cannot be possible for me to give any guidance on the revenue side.
Okay, okay. Fair enough, sir. And, sir, just wanted to, you know, maybe ask you a bit more regarding, like, our domestic. We are seeing a lot of growth happening. And exports also, sir, do we see the conflict escalating or, you know, maybe, you know, US also has its elections or something? That side, we are seeing key international price international, we might have more pressure from the Western part or, you know, any color on that, that would be great, sir.
U.S. election has zero impact on Jindal SAW India. It may impact Jindal SAW U.S. subsidiary, but that is so small in nature that overall, the impact would be marginal.
Okay. Okay.
The import escalating, very difficult for me to take a second guess. Looks like Israel and Iran, good sense have prevailed. But when it goes out of control, probably your guess would be better than mine.
Okay, okay. Perfect. Thank you so much, sir. That's it from my side. All the best, sir. Thank you.
Thank you, sir. We have our next question from the line of Pradeep Rawat from Yogi Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you for the opportunity. My question is regarding seamless pipe division. Do we see any significant demand ramp-up from the OCTG customers? And what would be our outlook for the segment in the seamless division, particularly with respect to capacity addition from the competitors?
Okay. Let me explain. You have asked a lot of questions, but it just looks like it's moderate. Let's start, first with OCTG. Yes, there's a lot of demand. India, the emphasis on domestic oil production, it looks like, has gone up significantly. So India is getting deeper into, the wealth that they have and exploring a lot more. All this gives rise to OCTG demand. We are seeing a lot of demand increase even in the premium segment. So OCTG premium segment is going to lead the demand for pipes. There, because of the Hunting JV, we are the only one in this format in India. Some of the peers are trying to catch up by coming up with some structured solution, but they still are, far away from where we have arrived, where the JV is fully operational.
It is next door and is supplying now premium connection OCTG pipes, tubes, casings. Very soon, we will also start producing connectors. Connectors essentially are what a coupling does to a lower diameter, connector does to a higher diameter. So the kind of product range that we will now this JV would be capable of doing, we stand a very, very good opportunity in the market.
Okay. So my next question is, what is our seamless tube production capacity, and by which method do we produce it? By extrusion or piercing?
We have both. Nagore Kaveh is extrusion, but that is largely used for stainless steel and for the 13 Chrome and all CRA grades. For mild steel in Nashik, we do penetration, so it is the piercing route that we follow. And then we also have in Nashik, piercing cum expansion route, which takes it to a diameter of up to 16 inches.
Okay. And what is the production capacity of our seamless division?
In Nashik, we have approximately 2.5-3, which we are optimizing and taking it up to 4. Nagore Kaveh is about 1.
Okay. Thank you. That's all from my side. And all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you, sir. We have our next question from the line of Radha from B&K Securities. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Congratulations on good performance. So my first query was, you mentioned regarding the Abu Dhabi volumes being impacted this quarter for the reasons that you have mentioned. So, how much finished goods inventory?
You have a hold. Again, please come closer to the mic, speak slowly because your voice is getting blurred.
Okay. Is it better now?
Yes.
Okay, so my question was regarding the Abu Dhabi execution. So, this quarter, our execution has been lower because of the reasons that you have mentioned. So how much finished goods inventory we have in Abu Dhabi? And, because of the what is the left-out orders in tonnage terms? Do you expect, you know, it to happen in Q1? And do you expect that the current quarter execution to be higher than Q2 FY 2024?
Okay. Q1 this year would definitely be significantly better than the Q4 last year. The last year, our total dispatch was approximately 200,000 tons. This year, we hope to beat that. We hope it will exceed. We have a full order book. We are fully booked for this year as far as our DI facilities in Abu Dhabi. Same is the case in India. In fact, in India and Abu Dhabi, put together, we have roughly 1,000,000 tons of capacity and an order book where we are booked for 12 months.
All right, sir. So secondly, we are seeing a lot of demand traction in the helical SAW pipe in the overseas market, particularly for the water segment. So can you please talk about the total opportunity size in the Gulf and MENA region, with respect to these HSAW pipes? And what is the total supply in that market, and how much is imported in those regions? Out of that, what is the opportunity size available for Jindal SAW? And that's with respect to HSAW.
A lot of questions you have packed in one. Let me try and simplify it for you. When you said LSAW helical pipes, you need to correct that. LSAW is longitudinal submerged arc welded pipes. Helically submerged arc welded pipes is called HSAW if you use that acronym, or it is called spiral pipes. Now, spiral pipes are essentially large diameter pipes which are, as the name suggests, helically first formed and then welded along the seam. That's why it's called HSAW. Being large diameter, it is transported to, and it is largely used for water sectors. In some cases, it can also be used for oil and gas sectors because now we also have the API grade, helical pipes that is possible. But you are right. Largely, it is used for the water sectors.
Countries like Saudi, countries like Iraq, Jordan, they are a huge market for these helical pipes. Helical pipes have an inherent disadvantage that it cannot be transported over very long distances because of the weight-to-volume ratio. And therefore, for us, the export market on which we focus our spiral pipes are Middle East, and we go up to Spain, etc., but not beyond that. Whereas our DI pipes from Abu Dhabi can go or goes up to Finland, up to Australia, up to Brazil all at the same time. So this market is doing very well. Saudi, as you all know, is developing very fast. And it is not just developing. Saudi is going through a transformation. A new capital city is being built. Infrastructure is being built. The country is opening up. So those are all good news because then they want water line. They want desalination plant.
Essentially, in these areas, the spiral pipe demand is good. Only point of concern is a Middle East conflict. If it gets blown into a full-fledged war, then there could be disruptions in the area.
Sir, what is the demand and supply in the Gulf and MENA region for this HSAW pipe in terms of metric tons?
Spiral capacity in the region is hardly there. We and some of our Indian friends are the major suppliers of spiral pipe in the region.
Any Chinese supply in that region, sir?
China, slowly but surely, it is getting isolated. The Europeans have started, you know, blocking their market to them. So far, we have not seen it happen in a very overt fashion. But slowly, we are seeing that, Chinese goods are not liked by, most of the big clients. And I must say, the Chinese pipes, there's a lot to be desired on the quality. And your, our pipelines are, you know, they have a life of 30, 40, 50 years. So the moment you create even an iota of doubt on quality, then just being the cheapest is not the best, is not doesn't necessarily make you the, supplier of choice. We are beginning to see that happening in the market.
In terms of competition, can you give some?
Oh, may we request you to rejoin the queue as there are several participants waiting for their turn?
Yes. Thanks.
Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Gokul Maheshwari from Awriga Capital Advisors. Please go ahead.
Thank you for the opportunity. Congratulations on very good set of numbers. I have a couple of questions. You mentioned very strong demand outlook in India as well as in the Middle East region. Can you comment on the U.S. and the European regions' demand conditions and whether we are in a position to address that market?
Okay. The U.S. is a very limited market for us. We don't sell any large diameter pipes. We don't sell any DI. We do sell some stainless, and we do sell some seamless. But that too, it's a good export market to have. But overall, in percentage terms, it is small. Europe, because of its sluggish growth, can be a very good market for seamless, again, and DI. But because of the sluggish growth in the European economy, at this point of time, it is not a booming or a growing market or a market with a lot of demand. So our focus is primarily on India and an export market, Middle East.
Okay. What would be the expected CapEx budget for FY 2025?
No, we have not announced any major projects as yet. So it will be normal CapEx. In fact, most of our major projects that we had announced, like the Coke Oven battery and all that, is nearing completion. So we expect the CapEx spent to be a modest, you know, INR 500-INR 600 crore this year.
Okay. Great. And lastly, just on the case against the NTPC one, I understand the matter is sub-judice. But is there an, I mean, is it just that it just keeps getting delayed, or is there a resolution which is expected in the near term? If you could just give a qualitative comment on when do you expect this to get resolved?
There is some development and some insight that I can share with all of you. Now, the matter is partly heard. That means the arguments have started. The opposite side has more or less completed all its arguments. The matter is partly heard with the judge. So now, we can expect it to finish in the, you know, near future because once the matter is partly heard, then you cannot change the judge. You cannot change the roster. Then there is a pressure that it must finish in a little time. This is a development that gives us some hope that during this calendar year, we do, we should see some movement.
Okay. Great. Thank you so much, and all the best.
Bye. Thank you.
Thank you, sir. We have our next question from the line of A.M. Loda from Sanmati PMS. Please go ahead.
Hello. Am I audible, sir?
Yes.
Congratulations, sir. Good set of numbers. And my first question is regarding the numbers alone. Usually in the March, if I look at this quarter, December to March, your operative profit your.
Please hold. Please hold. I am not able to hear you clearly. You will have to maybe speak a little slowly.
Hello. Am I audible, sir, now?
Yes.
Sir, I am talking about operating, operating profit. In the month of December, it was INR 988. In the month of March, it is INR 920 crore only. Whereas in March.
Oh, we have the line for the participant disconnected. Due to time constraint, this was the last question for today. I now hand the contents over to Mr. Vikas Singh for closing comments.
Yeah. Over to you, Vikas Singh.
I would like to, on behalf of PhillipCapital, thank Jindal SAW Management for giving us the opportunity to host the concall for you. I will hand it over to Mr. Vikas Singh for any closing remarks. Over to you, sir.
I wish to thank all our investors for taking keen interest. Please continue to remain connected, if you have any other questions. Submit on a mail to Rajeev Goel. We'll be happy to respond. And we do assure you that we'll continue our good effort to create value for all our shareholders, stakeholders. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Thank you. On behalf of PhillipCapital (India) Private Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines.