Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Praj Industries Limited's Q3 FY23 Earnings Conference Call. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen only mode. 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. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Anuj Sonpal from Valorum Advisors. Thank you. Over to you, Mr. Sonpal.
Thank you, Tanvi. Good afternoon, everyone, and a very warm welcome to you all. My name is Anuj Sonpal from Valorum Advisors. We represent the investor relations of Praj Industries Limited. On behalf of the company, I'd like to thank you all for participating in the company's earnings call for the 3rd quarter and nine months ended of financial year 2023. Before we begin, let me mention a short cautionary statement as always. Some of the statements made in today's earnings call may be forward-looking in nature. Such forward-looking statements are subject to risk, and risks and uncertainties which could cause actual results to differ from those anticipated. Such statements are based on management's beliefs as well as assumptions made by and information currently available to management. Audiences are cautioned not to place any undue reliance on these forward-looking statements in making any investment decisions.
The purpose of today's earnings call is purely to educate and bring awareness about the company's fundamental business and financial quarter under review. Let me now introduce you to the management participating with us on today's earnings call and hand it over to them for opening remarks. We have with us Mr. Sachin Raole, Chief Financial Officer and Director of Resources, and Dr. Ravindra Utgikar, Vice President of Corporate Strategy and Marketing. Without any further delay, I request Mr. Raole to start with his opening remarks. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you, Anuj. Good day, everyone. I welcome you to Praj Industries earnings call for quarter three and nine months ended FY23. All of you had the opportunity to go through our results and investor presentation for the quarter ended 31st December 2022. As a company involved in accelerating Energy Transition and Climate Action, Praj initiatives are showing definitive results. This quarter, we successfully commissioned Asia's largest single train 510 KLPD syrup ethanol plant, and I'm pleased to share that all performance parameters were achieved within 72 hours of plant commissioning. After successful demonstration of our RenGas technology, we are now building a large scale commercial CBG plant for one of the leading business conglomerates in India. Praj MoU with Axens of France for Sustainable Aviation Fuel projects to decarbonize aviation sector in India is yet another milestone development.
India's transportation fuel mix scenario is changing as evidenced from exclusive biofuel pavilion set up at Auto Expo held in Delhi in January. Praj was also invited by SIAM to participate in this flagship automobile event. This clearly manifests Praj's growing prowess as technology solutions provider. In fact, Praj is also invited to be part of exclusive SAF Pavilion set up by IOCL in India Energy Week, which is being inaugurated by Honorable Prime Minister today in Bangalore. Our CEO and MD, Shishir Joshipura, is leading Praj delegation for this important event today. We find Indian budget 2023-2024 to be growth oriented with sustained focus on infrastructure development. Honorable Finance Minister has given adequate focus on building sustainable industry ecosystem with provision for emissary segments. Green growth as a part of Saptarishi priorities has emerged a strong development agenda.
Honorable Finance Minister has made several provisions that will bolster nation's bioeconomy and aggregate sector in particular. This budget provides INR 35,000 crore for priority capital investment towards achieving India's goal of net zero carbon emissions. The budget has made specific announcements to give further momentum to development of CBG projects. 500 new waste to wealth plants under GOBARdhan, that is Galvanizing Organic Bio-Agro Resources Dhan scheme, will be established for promoting circular economy. This will include 200 CBG plants, including 75 plants in urban areas and 300 community or cluster-based plants at total investment of INR 10,000 crore. 5% CBG mandate has been introduced for all organizations marketing natural and biogas. To avoid cascading effect of taxes on blended from compressed natural gas, the budget has proposed to exempt excise duty on GST paid compressed biogas when consumed.
Removal of GST on blended CNG will help to create demand for biogas from oil marketing companies. It was also announced that appropriate fiscal support will be provided for collection of biomass and distribution of bio-manure. As a welcome measure for the financially stressed sugar sector, budget provided a relief of INR 10,000 crore. Sugar mills should be allowed to claim payment made to sugarcane farmers for the period prior to assessment year 2016-17 as expenditure under their tax assessment. In another major policy development, recently the Indian government has issued Ethanol Production Promotion Policy 2022. It has a provision for a subsidy of 25% or a maximum of INR 30 crore for setting up ethanol plants to encourage the ethanol capacity creation.
While India's EBP20 program is marching ahead of its target, there are clear indications for further demand for ethanol by way of flex-fuel vehicles. At India Auto Expo last month, number of automobile companies showcased vehicles that can run on ethanol blend up to 85%. Coming to our business operations, we closed quarter three FY 2023 on a strong note with healthy performance in terms of revenue and profitability. Our bioenergy business in domestic market, we continued strong performance on the order book. Around 75% of the orders came for ethanol, 75% came from statutory stocks and balance from the sugary feedstock. We are observing that sugar sector is more optimistic for its ethanol capacity enhancement, same trend is visible in our inquiry basket. Going forward, we expect sugary feedstock with ethanol plants to dominate the future capacity creation.
Our execution activities are at their optimal levels with multiple project sites in different geographies. On international front, low carbon ethanol has emerged as an interesting business opportunity in the USA. We are working on few leads which are maturing beyond inquiry stage. We have recently completed engineering audit for few ethanol plants in USA. This audit will help ethanol producers to finalize their investment decisions for deploying our low carbon ethanol technology solutions. Our services business is receiving promising response from the customers in both domestic and international markets. On 2G front, pre-commissioning activities are underway in full swing at IOCL Panipat plant. On international front, in Europe, our discussions are advancing in a positive way with various prospects regarding our technology offerings. As for CBG, our first rice straw-based commercial plant is in the final stages of commissioning. We expect the mechanical completion by end of March 2023.
Based on the learnings from the two commercial scale CBG plants commissioned earlier this year and the expectations from the customers, we are investing in R&D for processing different feedstock combinations for enhanced efficiency and yield. With series of affirmative announcements about CBG in the union budget, we expect the sector to gather momentum. On the critical equipment side, energy transition and climate action is emerging as a strong development agenda globally. Our Kandla facility will continue to serve the current market of oil and gas and fertilizers. To address the growing business opportunity in ETCA sector, we are investing in a new manufacturing facility to be housed in a new subsidiary. Talking about Praj Hi Purity business, our efforts of expanding offering basket is yielding the results.
We are witnessing increasing traction for offerings in the high capacity fermenters, which accounts for 20% of the total order booking of this year. We have also booked our first order in the semiconductor sector. PHS has a healthy inquiry basket from international markets at this point of time. Let me now take you through the financial highlights for the quarter and 9-month ended December 31, 2022. Total income from operations for the quarter stood at INR 909.97 crore as compared to INR 585.54 crore, delivering a growth of 55%. EBITDA grew by 69%, stood at INR 86.16 crore against INR 51 crore in the corresponding period last year. PBT came in at INR 85.90 crore in quarter three as compared to INR 60.25 crore of quarter three of the last year, up by 71%.
Profit of tax stood at INR 62.31 crore in quarter three as compared to INR 37 crore in quarter three of last year. For nine months FY23, income from operations was INR 2,516.42 crore as against INR 1,504.31 crore in nine months ended quarter for last financial year, up by 67%. EBITDA for the period under review stood at INR 209.67 crore as against INR 127.7 crore. Tax stood at INR 151.68 crore as against INR 92.60 of the last year. Export revenues accounted for 17% in this quarter. Of the total revenue, 72.7% is from bioenergy, 19.6% from engineering, and 7.7% from PHS business.
The order intake during the quarter was INR 944 crores, with 83.4% coming from domestic market. Of the total order intake, 82% came from bioenergy, 9.5% from engineering, and balance from PHS business. The order backlog as of December 2022 stood at INR 3,380 crores, comprising of 87.5% of domestic orders. As mentioned earlier, to address growing opportunity basket from Energy Transition and Climate Action agenda, we are planning to set up a new subsidiary with an investment of INR 100 crores. We have already started working on this expansion program. Cash in hand as on December 31, 2022 is INR 604 crores. I now conclude my remarks, and I would like to thank you all for joining us on this call.
We would now be happy to discuss any questions, comments, or suggestions you may have. Thank you.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touch-tone telephone. If you wish to withdraw yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Our recipients 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 Amit Anwani from Prabhudas Lilladher Private Limited. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Thanks for the opportunity. First question is on the CBG announcement which was made, sir. What would be our addressable market? Anything you have, you know, worked out on this? Will this be a viability care funding for the projects? How much portion of the plant we typically do? What kind of percentage we provide while the CBG plant is made?
Okay. When we take up the CBG plant, the addressable technically from our side is to construct the entire plant. That is the EPC kind of a thing. Instead of doing the entire plant, we prefer to do only the processing part of that plant, which is almost 50% to 55% kind of a number for any greenfield CBG project. The opportunities right now, the details are still awaited.
How this budget has spelled out around INR 10,000 crore of investment, how it is going to be made, whether it will be in the form of any kind of a subsidy or viability funding. We are still awaiting the details from this front. From our point of view, we can actually address the entire market, and that's the reason why we mentioned that we are investing into understanding different feedstocks, because the combination of feedstock is going to be very, very different than what we are looking at. Technically, the addressable market is entire market from our side. Depending on what will be the nature, what will be the size of plants, we will decide how we would like to take up or participate in this kind of a program.
Right, sir. My next question is, sir, on the ethanol order intake, which I can see, we, you know, peaked with INR 997 crores in 4Q and post that it is actually declining on the sequential basis. In this quarter, we did about INR 774 crores. How to read this? Are we, you know, seeing this peaked out? Second thing is on the 2G, what is the visible orders which are expected to come in FY 2024? What is in 1G, what is the, you know, yet to be tendered out opportunity?
Okay. On the bioenergy segment, the order book which you are mentioning is right, but you need to also understand this is a project business, so orders, closures need not necessarily happen the way in which we expect to happen. There is no necessity that we will see a sequential growth or degrowth or whatever to conclude what is happening in that particular segment of business. It is a long, long kind of a haul, and we have to see from a longish nature how the order closures are happening. We are seeing a trend continuously, mainly from the inquiry basket point of view, that inquiry basket is absolutely robust. Yes, sometimes it takes some time from the closure of those orders, and that's what is actually happening. On the 2G side, your question was another question was related to 2G.
Right now in our order book, very small component is still pending for servicing the existing orders. We have not seen any new order intake, and we hope and expect that once the first commercial plant starts its operation, we will see a movement happening on the order book going forward. Right now there is no additional order book which we have booked in the last quarter.
Right. My last question is on the INR 100 crore investment, which you talked about. I think this is into engineering business, if I'm not wrong.
That's right.
I think this is hydrogen.
Okay.
Give me any clarification on what exactly this.
Equipment business which basically serves the industry, which I just mentioned, like petrochemical and gas. Basket is getting increased to address the energy transition related investments. We are putting up a manufacturing capacity to serve this market, so we will be serving our critical equipment customers in a different way. We've seen that the demand for those equipment is absolutely increasing. Not only the equipment, but the modularization is actually taking a very definitive shape. We believe that the demand which we have currently or what we are witnessing, our existing facility at Panola will not be sufficient to serve that kind of a demand. That's the reason we are putting up this additional manufacturing facility.
Sure, sir. My last thing, if I can squeeze in on the gross margin, or what is your view for the coming quarters on the gross margin? We saw gross margin explode this quarter. Thank you.
Okay. The gross margin, what you have seen, yes, we are seeing that our old orders, where the fixed price contracts were having some kind of a pressure because of the commodity prices. They are coming to a closure. We believe that all the old orders should get over by quarter four and some portion in quarter one. The trajectory of margin, if all things remain the way we are right now, especially the external factors, we will see the change in the margin trajectory from the next financial year.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thanks.
Ladies and gentlemen, we request you to please limit your questions to two per participant. Should you have any further questions, you may join the queue back. The next question is from the line of Vivek Ganguly from Nine Rivers Capital. Please go ahead.
Thank you for the opportunity. My question is regarding the bio-CNG policy. You know, we haven't read too much about it, but is it likely to be along the ethanol policy where there was a mandate and then there was also a buyback arrangement with the OE marketing companies, so on and so forth. How, how do you all see that, you know, panning out? And also this INR 10,000 crores support that they are talking of, is this likely to be in the form of, you know, subsidy or a viability gap funding? If you can shed some light on that, it'll be very helpful.
Vivek, thank you for your question. You must have noticed in this budget announcement, a very clear indication is already given by the finance minister that going forward, there will be some kind of a mandate on blending CBG too. When and how that will happen, we'll have to wait and watch. Technically it's not a blending. You can actually replace CBG with CNG, but they said that at least minimum 5% of the CBG should be used, and that's what the measure has been discussed or announced in the budget. Your point is right, whether it will take a policy like ethanol. We'd like to see whether this is the beginning on, in that direction.
From our point of view, it brings very clearly that government is also interested in introducing CBG the way in which it is introduced on the ethanol side. There is a focus on CBG which is very, very clear and got highlighted in this budget. It is a very positive note for CBG because that's what was required to create some kind of a positive ecosystem for CBG. Yes, your point is right. It might happen in that direction, but we'll have to wait and watch. On the scenario of this INR 10,000 crore of investment, we are also awaiting the details on that front, whether it will be in the form of viability funding or it will be in the form of a subsidy.
What kind of modus operandi will be there for funding, we'll have to see, and we'll have to wait for more details on this front.
That's all from my end. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Vikram Suryavanshi from PhillipCapital. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Just wanted clarity on this INR 100 crore investment. We recently completed our expansion in Kandla and additionally, capabilities to manufacture. This additional INR 100 crore investment, what we are talking about, will be a particular specific opportunity or it will be agnostic to products even there will be opportunity to, for, say, a renewable chemical material we can do in this subsidy or it is like specifically focused on particular opportunity?
Thank you Vikram for your question. Yes, we have recently done expansion in Kandla, and we realized that the expansion in Kandla is not good enough to take care of the demand which is coming up from this segment of critical equipment because the investment which is happening across in the green energy, over and above what was happening on the CNG or LNG side. The investment is very huge, which will require some kind of an investment from our side because here the manufacturing has to happen at our end. We can't outsource manufacturing to third party and that's why this investment is being planned. Naturally it is backed by some kind of inquiries which we are seeing in our hands.
We are seeing the demand the way in which it is going to get developed over a period of next two to three years and we feel that it is very, very necessary for us or it is the right time for us to make this investment.
Okay, got it. This sustainable aviation, with the, joint venture or efforts with the France, we already have the Gevo for U.S. Any specific differentiation here we have in terms of technology or it is more about geographical, market share?
Vikram, this is actually a complementary arrangement which we are having. The Gevo arrangement rather Gevo MoU was for adopting their technology on this mola-conversion of molasses into isobutanol. Beyond isobutanol when you want to convert into SAF, Axens is going to play a role there. Axens is also going to play a role when we are converting ethanol to SAF. This is the last leg of SAF manufacturing where the Axens is going to play a role and Gevo is in the first leg where there is a conversion of molasses to isobutanol. Two different routes, but the last leg is going to be taken care of by Axens.
Okay, got it. Thank you, sir.
Thank you, Vikram.
We'll move to the next question from the line of Shailesh Kanani from Centrum Broking. Please go ahead.
Congratulations, sir, on good set of numbers. Sir, couple of questions from my side. One is that I wanted to know if there has been any change in our strategy in market wherein we are concentrating more on margins than market share and what would be our current market share?
That's a good question, Shailesh. And this is a question or rather the strategy is actually based on the inputs which we are receiving from all the relationships like all the analysts and people like you. We always kept on debating whether we should concentrate more on the market share or more on the margin side and actually we are trying to balance between these two. Instead of paying too much attention on the market share, we decided that we need to pay more attention on the margin and we are getting very, very selective in the selection of the orders, especially from the new segment where the promoters or entrepreneurs are completely new. We are actually evaluating and figuring it out what kind of seriousness is there in the game and we are selecting those orders only.
To that extent, yes, market share will look very different because we used to talk about market share of 60%. Today we are looking at market share of somewhere around 50%.
Sir, if you can elaborate more on this, what has been the reason and when is this strategy changed because the margin is it a forthcoming strategy or it is been implemented say couple of quarters behind?
We have started this, working on this strategy since this quarter where we decided that we need to be more choosy on the order booking intake, especially when the starchy feedstock is becoming a prominent one. This is a, this was going on since last couple of quarters but actual implementation we did in this quarter.
The positive impact on margin is yet to come, right? Because, because of this.
That's right. That's right. Because as I mentioned in the earlier question also we are still executing the old orders where we are still having some kind of a backlog. Hopefully that should get over in quarter four and from the next quarter we will see the normal orders with the normal margins playing its role.
Okay. In terms of 1G Ethanol, if you can just tell us the opportunity which is pending or tendering in quantum terms. What is the quantum of orders you see in next, say, two years by the time we reach E20?
Frankly, the market is very, very dynamic, Shailesh, and we just can't see from a lens of EBP20 only. The way in which market will evolve, it's not necessarily remain EBP20-oriented market. flex-fuel vehicles, as I mentioned in my opening remark, is going to be a big contributor going forward. These vehicles are not only for the segment of four-wheelers, but even two-wheeler segment is also coming up in this kind of, where ethanol is going to get used. The demand scenario is still not completely, what I can say, emerged on the backdrop of all these developments parallelly which are happening.
Sure.
If you look at only from the EBP20 angle it is very, very, what I can say, myopic according to me. We'll have to see the additional channels which will get opened up for the consumption of ethanol. We'll put a canvas of demand on a very, very different platform. We are evaluating all the scenarios, trying to figure it out how the consumption is going to play its role and prepare ourselves for the capacity creation going forward. I will not be able to give you a specific number saying that this is what we are going to contribute to, but you can get an idea what we are talking about because it's not going to be only EBP20 related market then.
Okay. Fair enough. Sir, last question if I can ask. We have partnerships on various new products. We have been working on various new products. Can you please categorize the potential opportunity quantum-wise and also period-wise, like in short term, medium term and long term, when we can see some fruits or some order booking or some revenue coming in?
All these MoUs which we have actually entered into or we are still entering into are meant from the medium to long term kind of a scenario. They are not meant from quarter to quarter or very short term. This is a development which we have undertaken to keep our growth trajectory on the positive side going forward too. These are the fillips if something goes wrong on the EBP20 or if anything happens and, no further demand coming up on the ethanol side, we are keeping all our options ready with all other avenues which will actually give up the growth trajectory which we are looking for. Just to answer your question in short, we are looking for all these MOUs to get developed into some kind of a commercialization from medium to long term.
Okay, sir. Thanks a lot. That's all from my side.
Thank you, Shailesh.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Amish Kanani from JM Financial Services. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, sir. Sir, congrats on a good execution as well as improvement in margins, sir. Sir, about the CBG, sir, if you can remind us, you know, my old note suggests that the typical CBG investment is of the size of INR 35-40 crores. With this GOBARdhan scheme talking about 500 plants, does it mean that we are talking about, say, initially a INR 20,000 crore kind of a market opportunity? Is it possible to guesstimate, you know, how soon they can come up? I understand, you know, budget is not clear about viability, gap funding versus, you know, whether government is doing investment upfront. Some thoughts, you know, will help us. Thanks.
It's very difficult just to, what I can say, guess the number, but let me just try to figure it out. INR 10,000 crore is the investment which is being talked about by the honorable Finance Minister in her budget. It is divided between two big segments. One is on the CBG side and one on the cluster segment. Cluster segment investment might be on a lower side. What will be the percentage of allocation of fund to that side and what will be the on the CBG side, seriously we'll have to see. Taking a cue, some kind of a cue or some kind of an estimate, let's say one plant is going to cost INR 30 crore on an average. I'm just putting a number because small plants will cost little lower than that number.
Sure.
We are talking about the investment number which you mentioned more or less in that kind of a direction.
Sure.
Yes, it can be in the range of INR 20,000 crore. We'll have to still wait how this is going to get evolved over a period of time. Today it might be little premature to give you some kind of a number over there.
Okay. Sir, is it fair to assume that here the market share, the way we are dominating in ethanol, is it fair to assume that our market share here will be in the similar size? Can we assume market share in excess of 50% or it's again too early? My point is what is the competitive landscape in this market beyond Praj?
As compared to ethanol, CBG competition market or rather the landscape is very, very different. In ethanol there were very, very few players in that sense who were playing a very serious role on ethanol. In CBG we are seeing multiple kind of a competition number. It is completely, the entire market if you look at including the competition, is completely evolving. It is too early to say that whether market share is going to be 50 or 10. We would like to play a meaningful and a leading role in that segment. That's what I can say at this point of time.
Sure, sir. Sir, on the flex-fuel side, you know, you did mention about, you know, SIAM, you know, calling us and also, you know, a lot of manufacturers offering their products. Here, sir, how do you see the evolution? One, in terms of, you know, a lot of players are showing their, you know, E85 kind of a vehicle. The question is, how do you see that market evolving? Is there a role where the government will again mandate that, you know, you have to, you know, introduce this vehicle with the next timeline and stuff like that, sir?
This is what auto industry is looking for by introducing vehicles which can run on ethanol, blended ethanol or on the ethanol. This is what the plans they have, they have actually announced in the Auto Expo. We need to see to what extent these numbers are coming up. The encouraging part was there were multiple players who actually talk about it. It's not only one player or two player. This gives a confidence to us that the population or the % of electric vehicle is going to be on the higher side, which will add to the demand which is required for the economy.
Sure, sir. Sir, last question before I go.
Sorry to interrupt, sir. We request you to please come back in the queue. A reminder to all the participants, please limit your questions to two per participant. Should you have any further questions, please join the queue back. The next question is from the line of Kunal Sheth from B&K Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Congratulations on the good quarter number, and thank you for the opportunity. My question is pertaining to, what is our sense on how much of 1G ordering would have been already completed by now?
Are you referring this to EBP20?
Yeah, that's right.
If you are only considering the capacity creation requirement for EBP20, somewhere around balance capacity of maybe INR 450-500 crores is still remaining to be created.
Okay. Sir, as far as 2G is concerned, you were saying that, you know, you're already completed the pilot projects and now, you know, inquiries for 2G are, you know, active.
Kunal, yes. What we mentioned that there were three orders, commercial scale orders we are currently executing. They are in the final leg. One is at an advanced stage, two might be a year down the line. Apart from these three orders, we said that there are no new orders which have been made announced in the domestic market. At the same time, I was referring to Europe market, where we are dealing with couple of inquiries. Being a complex kind of a nature of this entire 2G story itself, it's taking time, but it is moving in a very positive way because we need to have the right promoters and the right investors to commit to this 2G story. Which is what is happening right now in the Europe side.
Sure. Sir, what is your sense on, you know, while we've been maintaining this, you know, 950 to 1,000 kind of a run rate for several quarters now. Do we think there is enough visibility in the short term, I understand there are a lot of triggers in the medium term, to maintain this run rate for next few quarters?
See our endeavor is naturally to maintain that kind of a run rate. I'd like to see, as I mentioned earlier also, that this is a project business. The order finalization sometimes takes time. The positive input which I can give you on the order book that we are right now looking at a very all-rounded kind of an order book and not getting concentrated only on one business. That's the effort which we are right now doing. Which will help us in maintaining this kind of a run rate. It is completely what I can say it's our endeavor to keep this run rate on.
So...
Thank you. Sorry to interrupt, sir.
Yeah.
Please join the queue back.
Sure. No.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Prashant Shah from Serum Institute of India Private Limited. Please go ahead.
Hello. Good afternoon. Can you hear me?
Your voice is very feeble.
Yeah. Can you hear me now?
Yes, better.
Yes. Okay. My one question was on just a follow-up of what you indicated right now. If you can just give us a trend or your view on the trend in the order book for the last three, four quarters. I think it peaked out somewhere in Q4 and Q1 and has been on a slightly softening trend over the last Q2 and Q3. My other question was a slightly bookkeeping question. If you see the difference between console numbers and standalone numbers, if you can just explain why Q3 last year, the standalone PAT of INR 64 crores turned out to became a PAT of INR 37 crores at console level. This year, why the trend has reversed? If you can just explain that much. That's it. Thank you.
Okay, Prashant. First, to your question related to order book, I have already said that we are trying to see how the composition of order input from different businesses should give us the run rate which we are looking at. This composition may change. The order placement scenario may change. Quarter-on-quarter will be little difficult for us to comment what is going to happen. I see that on the annualized basis, our order booking is going to be on healthy side. That's what our plan is to maintain the growth momentum which we have already achieved. Second question is related to difference between the standalone and the consolidated numbers between these in this quarter. If you add up the September quarter versus December quarter, in the standalone-
December quarter to December quarter.
December quarter to December quarter. If you look at in the standalone. You are talking about only quarter?
I'm talking. Yeah, for the quarter only. Last quarter, last year's Q3 quarter to the end this year Q3 quarter.
In a standalone number?
On standalone number, if you see last year Q3, we reported a profit of INR 64 crores. Which on a consolidated number turned out to be INR 35 crores.
If you look at in INR 64 crores of the last 31st December 2021 quarter, we were earning the dividend income from a subsidiary company to the tune of INR 30 crores. Technically, if you remove that dividend, the profit should have been in the range of INR 34 crores. Profit has moved actually from INR 34 crores to INR 55 crores in this quarter.
Okay. That was the only component there.
That's right.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Krisha Kansara from Molecule Ventures PMS. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Congratulations on results.
Not clearly audible. If you can please speak up.
Am I audible now?
Yeah, you can proceed now.
Sure. Thank you. Sir, my question was regarding the recent news flow. The government has prepensed the ethanol blending target by two years. Just wanted to know your take on it. Is it practically possible for the industry to achieve this 20% target in one year?
Krisha, thank you for your question. The target was moved first from 30 to 25 from the blending target point of view. What is the announcement which you have heard or read in the newspaper is related to availability of ethanol of 20% blended with the gasoline will be made available from 2023 onwards itself. This is going to be like on a trial basis because it has to start so that we can actually see this EBP20 program catching up in 2025. This is what is going to happen from ONGC side. They will be putting up few pumps with the 20% blended petrol.
Correct.
It is not the entire target which is advanced. It is not the entire 20%, target is advanced by two years, but it is the availability which is going to happen from 2023.
Correct. Basically, they will initiate the 20% blending.
Yes.
from 2023 itself, but only on selected petrol pumps.
That's right.
Okay, sir. Thank Thank you, sir.
Thank you.
That's all from me.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Jay Shah from Capital PMS. Please go ahead.
Hello. Can you hear me, sir?
Yes.
Yes. Congratulations, sir, for a great set of numbers. Sir, my question was bit on the macro side. If you can explain us some moving parts in the whole hydrogen chain, that what is happening. Secondly, sir, on the last call you mentioned about the Inflation Reduction Act, the bill that was passed in the U.S., sir. Are we getting some attraction there, you know, and attention there from the, even the U.S. players on the clean energy front?
The second question, can you please repeat? First question I got it, but second question, if you can repeat?
The second question is, sir, Inflation Reduction Act, the IRA bill that was passed.
Understood. Understood. The first part, hydrogen, is according to us, is little early to mention what is going to happen, what kind of, what I can say, the roadmap is going to come up for hydrogen because there is a talk around it in a big way. We'll have to figure it out how it is going to get actually played out in the near future. We are definitely preparing ourselves on multiple fronts, including for that matter, the investment which you have mentioned for putting up a manufacturing facility is basically to provide critical equipment required for hydrogen manufacturing. We are preparing on all the fronts, one on the energy side, second on the equipment side also.
I would not, I think at the cost of repetition, I will say that in the equipment side we are actually making everything to find out how it can be offered on a, in a modularized way. We are investing a lot on that side. That is on the hydrogen side. Second thing on IRA, we, I also mentioned that in the international front we are seeing, especially from USA, demand which will emerge on the low carbon ethanol. This is nothing but an outcome of this IRA which you just mentioned, where we have already started, providing our services. We have already done, audit for at least three plants at this point of time.
There will be stages of these audits, and we are moving from one stage to second to prove that what can be done with our technology solutions for reducing the carbon intensity in the ethanol. Yes, action is going on based on what is happening on the IRA front too.
Okay, sir. Thank you. Sir, just the last question, you had mentioned that, you know, a lot of European companies and the U.S. companies, they are waiting for, you know, how our Panipat plant turns out to be, because you said that, you know, a lot of eyes were there on how we are able to ramp up there. What is the progress on that?
As I mentioned in my remark, Jay, that our pre-commissioning activity is going on. We have completed the mechanical completion, so plant is technically ready. It has multiple sections. We are actually going through section by section checking of that, figuring it out how it is going to perform, so that when we are taking up the entire plant from the commercial production point of view, we should not have any surprises. We are getting that completely done in next couple of months time. That's the first development which is going on on the Panipat side. We mentioned that based on the visibility of commercial production from a commercial plant, the other markets are naturally going to react to it, and that's what is going to happen in Europe. It is going to be a long story.
It is not going to be a short story. That we always maintain that it is not going to be in the short term, it is going to evolve only in the medium term. Every step I can tell you, as a feedback to you guys, that on a quarter-on-quarter basis, we are very definitively progressing in a positive direction. The investors and the promoters both need to be completely comfortable before they commit the investment into two GPs. In Europe, the investment for one particular plant is not going to be less than EUR 200 million to EUR 250 million.
This is a huge investment. That's why it is going to be traded little bit more cautiously, where the Panipat plant will definitely help us in exhibiting that, and our work which we have already started working with these prospects is going to give us some kind of an edge in the European market.
Okay. Okay, sir. Thank you so much for the detailed answer, sir, and all the best for the future quarters.
Thank you, sir.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Divyanshu Sachdeva from White Oak. Please go ahead.
Hi, Sachin. Sir, I'm audible?
Yes, very much.
Yeah. Hi, sir. First question, I mean, I'm sorry, I joined the call a bit late. Can you please explain your this new MOU that you have signed with Axens? Like, what kind of role the Praj is playing, and, like, what is this means really all about?
For SAF, there is a long, what I can say, manufacturing phase, starting either from molasses or ethanol to SAF. There are two parts, first leg and second leg. Second leg is related to SAF's manufacturing, where We are joined hand with Axens, where we will be using Axens' technology for conversion of either isobutanol to SAF or conversion of ethanol to SAF. That's the leg where Axens is going to play a role. We are going to play a role for isobutanol and ethanol, and that ethanol is going to be low carbon ethanol. It's a chain where both of us are going to play a role. First part by Praj, second part by Axens.
Okay. This isobutanol to ethanol is also something which we have tied up with Gevo for?
Yes. isobutanol is from molasses to isobutanol, where Gevo is the one whose technology we have adopted. They have a corn technology. We adopted their corn technology in molasses to isobutanol.
Okay. Under-understood. Just one more thing, if I see Gevo's commentary, Gevo and other airline commentary, British Airways has committed 10% SAF by 2030. Gevo has tied up for an offtake agreement of 350 million gallons and tied up with various airlines, American Airlines, Alaska Airlines, Japan Airlines. It seems Gevo is very, very positive in terms of SAF to be the next growth driver. Anything they have indicated or something towards us, how they would pan this thing and how this thing should be very much incremental for Praj itself? Because this seems very incremental and very positive. They have also mentioned that the entire SAF space would be worth more than 30 billion gallons over the next two decades.
Is this something that we are seeing going forward from the Gevo side?
If you look at European market and U.S. market, they have already started committing on the SAF front, which has not yet happened in India. There is no commitment in the sense there is no blending mandate per se for the SAF in Indian market. That has already started happening in European and American markets. Why airlines are committing? Because they have seen this commitment they will have to meet with going forward, and that's why they are committing their requirement of SAF from the Gevo side. That's a big development that market is happening.
In our market also, it will have its own impact, and w e will see some kind of mandate coming up going forward on the SAF blending in India too, which will create opportunity for us to have manufacturing facilities for SAF in India. Right now, the facilities, manufacturing facilities are going to be outside India and not in India immediately, at least for some time. But we will see that kind of a development happening in the medium term.
Okay. All right, sure. Thank you so much, and all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Ankur Kumar from Alpha Capital. Please go ahead.
Hello, sir. Thank you for taking my question. My question is on the order book and execution. If I see our, while our order book has been growing, growth has slowed down a little bit. Can you comment more on that? Our execution has been quite good. If given such high order book, what is the kind of guidance on revenue and margins that you would like to give?
Ankur, I have already mentioned about how the order book is planning for us and how it is going to get evolved over a period of time. As I said, in the short term, I mean, if I just bucket it in the short, medium, and long term, I think in the short term, ethanol is definitely going to play its big role. Short to medium role, from the bioenergy segment, we will see CBG playing its role. From medium to long term, we see SAF is going to play a big role. In the bioenergy segment, from short to long term, we see very definitive candidates sitting with us in our bioenergy offering. This is on the short, medium, and long term for the bioenergy segment. If I look at engineering has started picking up beautifully well for us.
it will span out once we have the manufacturing facility coming up. It will give us some kind of a fillip if there is any kind of a blip in the bioenergy segment, and it will give a complete filling up kind of a effect on the engineering side from the medium to long term. This is how the trajectory for us from the order booking or from the business growth kind of a thing which we are seeing going forward. Revenue and margins, it will be too early. Generally, we don't give any kind of a futuristic statement or a guideline on this, but I'm sure that it will be in line with the order booking which we are going to have in these business segments.
Sure, sir. In terms of execution, fourth quarter is the best quarter. Can we expect that to continue here also now?
See, the way in which we have seen this year getting evolved, we are seeing more or less, more or less we are seeing quarter-on-quarter the execution is falling in place. It is not, e arlier it used to, your point is valid, that first six months used to be on the lower side and next six months used to be on the higher side. We are now seeing that some kind of a semblance is coming up in our quarterly performance. So yes, quarter four is generally good. It will remain good, if I'm not wrong. More or less it we will see the going forward, the scenario that more or less quarter-on-quarter numbers are going to be in some kind of a range.
Sure, sir. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
The next question is from the line of Hemant, individual investor. Please go ahead. Hemant, your line has been unmuted.
Yeah.
Please proceed with your question.
Congratulations on a very good set of numbers, sir, and thank you for providing me the opportunity.
Sorry, Hemant, I'm not able to hear you.
Sir, congratulations on very good set of numbers, and thank you for providing this opportunity. Sir, a couple of questions from my side. Sir, firstly, what is the current ethanol blending?
Current ethanol blending.
In terms of percentage.
It has almost reached to 12%.
12%. Sir, what kind of revenue visibility we have for the remaining 8%?
See, the some kind of a capacity is already either got created or already got contracted. In another question, I was mentioning that another capacity of almost 450-500 crores of liters is still pending. That capacity creation will come up over a period of time.
What kind of revenue we can expect from the 450 to 500 crore liters of ethanol in the next 1-2 years?
What is the total CapEx around this capacity is going to be there? If it is 450-500, means almost 100 to 150 plants can come up. The total investment will be in the range of around INR 10,000-15,000 crore. From the addressable market point of view, if you look at for Praj, it will be somewhere around INR 6,000-7,000 crore.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Sanjeev Kumar Damani from SKD Consulting. Please go ahead.
Namaskar. Congratulations and thanks for giving me opportunity to speak. My straight question is regarding the likely internal projection of yours in this quarter sales. I mean, can you quantify the turnover that you are likely to achieve in this quarter, if at all?
You are asking me what will be the numbers for the coming quarter?
Top line for this quarter, existing quarter ending on March 23.
Sorry, we don't give any kind of a guidance. I'm extremely sorry.
No problem. It has to be 20%, 30% higher, sir, than the existing one because we are.
Sir, we just don't give this guidance directly or indirectly. I'm extremely sorry.
Okay. Okay, sir. Acha, would you like to give name to the three plants that you are already coming up for making ethanol from syrup? Means company name for whom you are executing, if at all you can share?
Yes, sure. It is Nirani Industries based out of Karnataka.
Acha. 510, sir, you have written 510 liter per day single plant is being commissioned for them?
Yes.
Has been commissioned?
Yes.
It is for Nirani Sugars Limited. It's a private limited company, sir, or a listed company?
You can have a look at them. They have the-
Okay.
-listed entities also within them. There are multiple, two or three, setups they have within their own group.
Thank you, sorry to interrupt. Sanjeev, we will request you to please come back in the queue. The next question is from the line of Shailesh Kanani from Centrum Broking. Please go ahead.
Thanks for the opportunity again, sir. Sir, I just wanted to understand if we have booked any after-sales service revenues in this quarter. Given that the ethanol production capacity in last three years have kind of a leapfrog from, say, 4x to 5x, if you can shed some light going ahead, what kind of opportunities we can get from this?
From the segment of services, I mean.
Yeah. Yeah, services.
Services, we are very cautiously treading that business. That business has two or three segments. One is the consumables or the biosolutions which we sell under that, which are basically act like a performance enhancers for the plant. We are seeing a good traction for that business within the domestic and international. International is taking some time because that market needs a demonstration to be done of our performance enhancers there. One by one, we are actually tackling that kind of a demonstrations for those people whenever the sugar season is available. Last year we did for almost four or five customers in Brazil for the testing of these demonstration, and we will continue that kind of a scenario going forward also.
We see a good kind of attraction to come up for the consumables business, which we call as performance enhancers in the domestic and international business both. There is another segment on the operations and maintenance, O&M. We have started offering that services within the bioenergy segment, especially on the 1G plant. The idea was to get used to understanding of this segment very well because this business, O&M business within 1G may not have that kind of an opportunity, but it will come up in a good amount of way in the CBG side and on the second generation or even for the 1G plant which are coming up on the starchy-based feedstock. This was like a preparedness from our side to understand how this business can come up.
We are doing at least two or three specific orders on the O&M at this point of time. To some extent, yes, that kind of an order book is already booked in this quarter of December.
Sir, one more thing. If you can just shed some light on Bio-Prism RCM front, if anything you can like to highlight the status or opportunity, anything on that front, on the RCM front?
Yeah. RCM front, I didn't specifically mention because it's not on the short term kind of a scenario. It is going to be medium term to long term. We are already marching on our product development phases in a very, very positive way. The results for the first couple of products which we have started working on are encouraging. This business is going to be little different and we are aware about the nature of this business because this business is not going to be as traditional like the ethanol business or CBG. We are working on what kind of mechanism and business models will emerge, and we are trying to figure it out, how to get into that kind of a stage.
It is going to be more on a medium to long term kind of a phase, not short term.
Okay, sir. Thanks a lot, sir.
Thank you.
Thank you, Shailesh. Thank you very much.
As there are no further questions, I now hand the conference over to management from Praj Industries Limited for closing comments.
Yes. First of all, thank you very much for your time today. If you have any more questions, feel free to write us at info@praj.net and we look forward to interacting with you again. Have a nice day. Thank you.
Thank you. On behalf of Praj Industries Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines.