Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Shree Cement Limited Q4 FY25 earnings consult call hosted by ICICI Securities 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. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your telephone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Naveen Sahaj for opening remarks. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you, Sasha. Good evening, everyone. On behalf of ICICI Securities, I welcome you all to the Q4 FY25 earnings call of Shree Cement. From the management, we have with us MD Mr. Neeraj Akhoury, Senior Advisor Mr. Ashok Bhandari, and CFO Mr. Subhash Jajoo. Without any further ado, I hand over the call to the management for their opening comments. Over to you, sir.
Thank you. Thank you, Naveen. Good morning or good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Most welcome to the earnings call for Shree Cement Limited. I'm sure you must have had a chance to read our quarterly results. The Q4 last quarter has witnessed a rebound in demand driven by increase in government CapEx and overall pickup in all the economic activities. The residential sector demand picked up, propelled by uptake in rural demand because of good monsoons and increased urbanization. The commercial segment has also shown good potential driven by retail and office space expansion, which is fast emerging as another cement demand growth driver. While there are several challenges, the strategic expansions, consolidation, and sustainability efforts position the cement industry for long-term growth. Talking about operational and financial performance, the current quarter has been a period of superior performance if I may say so.
Our total India sales volume increased to 9.84 million tons in the current quarter, up from 8.67 million tons on a sequential basis, raising a growth of approximately about 13%. Our focus on premium products helped us improve our average realization per ton by about 5% to INR 4,768 from INR 4,554 on a sequential basis again. Supported by a drop in the fuel sourcing cost, rationalization of the power cost due to rising share of green energy, and efficiency measures undertaken across our operations, EBITDA for the quarter was INR 1,383 crores, representing a growth of 47%. EBITDA per ton increased by 29% to INR 1,406 from INR 1,088 on a sequential basis.
In fact, I might just like to add that our adjusted EBITDA per ton is standing at 1,437, but the impact of one-off item of INR 30.66 crore regarding impact of voluntary separation scheme of employees and contract workers undertaken by the company during the quarter is taken into account. Company's focus over the last several months has been on improving price realization through enhancing our sale of premium products, raising the level of brand positioning versus competitors, and a superior, better geo mix. We are confident, ladies and gentlemen, that going forward, the strategy will play out in improving brand equity, lifting volumes, as well as price realization. The company continues its effort towards enhancing the share of green power to produce cement in a more sustainable and cost-effective manner.
The company's share of green electricity in total electricity consumption, very proud to say, is stood at about 60.2% in quarter 4 FY 2025, which is one of the highest in the Indian cement industry, if not the global cement industry. The company is consistently ramping up its green power generation capacity, which stood at 582 MW at the end of quarter 4 FY 2025, up by 21% vis-à-vis 480 MW at the beginning of the FY 2024-2025. During March 2025, the company commissioned a solar power of 60.3 MW at Jodhpur in Rajasthan. The work on a few more solar plants at different plant sites is underway. Accordingly, we are convinced that going forward, the share of green energy will increase further. The company also remains focused and committed to improve our ESG performance on all parameters.
Again, very proud to say that yesterday, the company received ESG rating CareEdge ESG 1 with a rating score of 70.8 from CareEdge Rating Certificate. The above ratings represent Shree Cement's leadership position in managing ESG risk through its best-in-class disclosure, policies, and performance. Further, the company also secured its place with the S&P Global Sustainability Yearbook 2025 as an industry mover. Based on S&P Global Comprehensive Corporate Sustainability Assessment, the Sustainability Yearbook comprises companies scoring in the top 15% of the industry for sustainable business practices. On the CapEx front, recently, the company commissioned a few units. First was the cement grinding unit in Eta near Agra in Uttar Pradesh of 3 million tons through its wholly owned subsidiary. The second was a cement grinding unit at Baroda Bazar, Chhattisgarh, which is about 3.4 million tons.
This has taken our total installed cement capacity to 62.8 million tons in India. Company's other ongoing projects of integrated cement units in Jaitaran in Rajasthan and Kodla in Karnataka are scheduled for commissioning by end of quarter 1 2026 and quarter 2 2026 respectively. Further, the company has decided that out of the two cement mills of an additional 6 million ton capacity planned earlier in Jaitaran in Rajasthan, only one will be commissioned in Jaitaran, while the other mill will be installed later. The company is continuously working to identify suitable opportunities to reach its goal of achieving more than 80 million ton capacity by 2028. Recognizing the market demand for premium products, the company has launched several premium products, which have resulted in an increase of share of premium product sales from 11.9% in Q4 2024 to 15.6% in Q4 2025.
During March quarter, the company launched Bangur Marble Cement, Extra White Porcelain Slag Cement in Bihar, West Bengal, and Jharkhand markets. The product offers high-performance attributes and an eco-friendly approach, incorporating GGBFS byproduct from the steel manufacturing. An eco-friendly approach from our side, and the composition supports stronger, more durable structures while reducing the environmental footprints. The product will be offered alongside Bangur Cement's premium lineup, including Rockstrong, Power Magna, and Rufon. We are expecting the cement demand to grow by 6.5% to 7.5% during FY 2026, fueled by infrastructure projects, rural recovery, real estate momentum, and softening interest rates. This is from my side, ladies and gentlemen. Now, I hand over to my colleagues, Mr. Ashok Bhandari, our Senior Advisor, Mr. Subhash Jajoo, our CFO, to take this conversation further. In addition to them, we also have our Company Secretary with us, Mr.
Khandelwal, as well as our Head of Finance and Accounts, Mr. K. K. Jain. Thank you everybody.
Thank you, Neeraj. Good afternoon, everybody. Mr. Neeraj has given you a comprehensive overview of the operations of the company. I suggest you may like to go straight to the Q&A. Before that, I must point one more thing in these results. From this quarter onwards, we have slightly tweaked our ECL policy to have a more conservative accounting approach. Accordingly, hitherto, we were providing ECL only to the extent of legal suits filed. Henceforth, we shall be using ECL provisioning, or we shall be providing for ECL for all legal notices served. This means that in this quarter, another INR 24 crore of additional provision has been made towards ECL based on legal notices issued. I must caution you guys that these are provisions only for a more conservative accounting approach and do not mean that they are debts written off. We shall be following this policy.
Accordingly, apart from Mr. Neeraj Akhoury's announcement of about INR 31 crore of one-time VRS, you may also like to add about INR 24 crore of one-time such provisioning. In addition, the numbers are there. You may like to ask your questions, please. 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 touchstone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Amit Murarka from Axis Capital. Please go ahead.
Amit, go ahead.
Hi, good evening. Yeah, congratulations on a great result for Shree. My first question is on volume, actually. We have seen generally industry kind of do high single-digit volume growth of late. Our volume rate still remains in low single digits. I wanted to understand what is the outlook now for volume for FY 2026, particularly as we are commissioning large capacities in Q1 also?
Murarka ji, let me make it very clear to you. Right after Q1 2024-2025, we had said that our strategy is not to be the biggest volume player in the industry, but be the most profitable player in the industry. Accordingly, a constant trade-off has been undertaken between price and volume. Since price is what or the resultant of the price, that is EBITDA or net profit, is available to the shareholder, we thought it better to concentrate on profits instead of concentrating on volumes. You know that it is a proven fact that in a capacity overhang scenario, you do not get price and volumes both. You have to do a trade-off, come to a cutoff point, and see at what volumes you can maximize your profitability because that is the only distributable item in our hands. We do not distribute revenue; we distribute profits.
I have been telling you this for the last three quarters, but then so be it. As far as the volume for 2025-2026 is concerned, Mr. Akhoury has clearly said that we expect 6.5% to 7.5% or 8% growth. I would be slightly more aggressive. I would like to say that we may do about 39 million tons for this year. However, the strategy of trade between volume and profit will be foremost in our minds. As the year progresses, we'll keep you updated.
Understood. Understood. When we pursue, like you're saying, the high single-digit volume versus the target year this year, which broadly I understand will be in line with industry, is it fair to say that the capacity utilization will stay subdued for you? I mean, we have been seeing this within the range of 65% for the last year or so. The new expansions also will remain.
You have to understand the rationale of our capital expenditure or capacity creation. Please understand that the delta between the treasury return, which may be say 10-year GSEC, and inflation is hardly about 2%. We are creating an option at 2% for additional capacity because if we get two quarters like January-March, all these option costs are taken care of. At 2% option, we are creating capacity to see, and generally, the cement demand should be more vibrant than what we are claiming today. That is because of the fact that the demand has not been as robust as it should have been in April until first week of May, which was because of the war. We are slightly cautious. Give us some time. The demand should pick up. We are positive about it. No growth is possible without cement and steel.
We expect that in two, three years' time, we should go back to about 75%-85% capacity utilization.
Understood. That's very clear. Just a last question now on the Q4. I see that the purchase of traded goods is a bit elevated in this quarter. Is it some kind of earlier? I remember some coal was sold overseas. Was it something similar this quarter?
It will be similar. I'll take and let Mr. Jajoo or Mr. Jain respond on that. Please appreciate that I do not go into such detailed analysis of numbers. If you need or if you can wait, send a mail to us, and we'll reply to you accordingly. It should be in line with the trend.
Yes. Okay. Okay. Sure. Fine. I'll just come back in the queue. Thank you.
Thank you so much. Ladies and gentlemen, in order to ensure that the management is able to address questions from all participants in the conference, please limit your questions to two per participant. The next question is from the line of Satyadeep Jain from Ambit Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you so much. Mr. Akhoury, just for the first question, would be on the branding strategy. You joined Shree Cement about two and a half years ago. The intent has always been to close the pricing gap with others. Initially, the different strategies did not yield the desired results. In the last few months, we have seen a change. I just wanted to see what different strategy you adopted now in the past few months. It does not seem like it is just withholding volume because you have seen the pricing gap in certain markets close with the peers. What different have you done in the last few months which you did not do earlier? Is that strategy different across regions? Because as per the channel checks, it seems the gap has closed in certain regions, and certain regions still need to close.
Just the overall changing strategy and how is it working in different regions?
I don't think we had described our strategy, and I think hearing from us in the last two, three quarter call that we are giving a lot of push to our premium products. It's an intent that we should improve our brand equity scores. We should create the right brands that make an impact in the market. That strategy of creating a better brand equity score through several means, including new products, including impact on quality, including bringing the right amount of technical work in the field, all that is continuing. It's a journey. As we find that our brands are becoming more strong, we are pushing for better pricing as well. I think, as I said, this is a journey. It will take some more time before we really start talking about it that we are one of the best positioned players in the industry.
How is that positioning different in different regions? Do you think it's similar in?
I think Pan India market, the approach will be same in terms of brand equity and improving the brand scores. That will be absolutely same. The approach will not be different in different markets. We may have different brands in different markets, but not the approach. Approach fundamentally will remain same. That is to use our brand equity to better our price positioning.
Okay. Second question on the capacity you're creating, especially in North, you have one near Pali and the other one coming up, the other one in Etah. I mean, it looks like on the outside, similar market, North with a distance of 500 km. Just wanted to understand, with Etah, are you looking to go further eastern side of Central, eastern side of UP, and with the Pali one, are you looking at maybe going to Gujarat? What are the target markets you are because they're both North, but are you looking to get to Central and Gujarat from these markets?
Clearly, even Etah being closer to Agra, it is closer to the Central UP markets as well as some of the East UP markets. Therefore, Etah will be, we will try to use Etah capacity to better our market shares in the very high-demand markets of Central and East UP. As far as North plants are concerned, we still have room in many of the northern markets, including states like Jammu and Kashmir, states like Gujarat, states like West MP, and some other markets as well. That effort will continue. Both plants will be catering to different markets. We are excited that we will be entering Central UP and East UP using Etah as a base. It is a large plant, and it will help us to augment our market shares in these markets.
If I may further add, putting the industry really tweaking in awareness, a significant scope exists in creating necessary infrastructure to control the flow of waters. That means much greater demand in North India. Please appreciate that. Mr. Bhandari, you're sorry.
Just the one unit you have, maybe you were looking to do it in Pali and expand it. This new unit that you will think will be considering, Mr. Bhandari, what you just said, catering to demand in those particular pockets.
Yes.
Is that?
Yeah.
My dear friend, you can set up a cement capacity only if you have limestone. If there be limestone in Jammu and Kashmir, we'll certainly set it up there.
So that I understand, it'll come from Nawalgarh or one of the or maybe last year.
Yeah, it will be.
I was just trying to understand you.
It will be for North players in general, and this gives us confidence in our 11th unit in Ras or Gekharan, whatever you want to call it, that we should be able to service it nicely.
Okay. Thank you, and wish you the best.
Thank you so much. The next question is from the line of Rajeev Cowry from HDFC Securities. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Good evening. Congrats on good set of numbers. First, some housekeeping numbers. If you could share what was the fuel cost per KKL, trade mix, and lead distance.
Yeah. Thank you, sir. Yeah. Myself is K. K. Jain. Fuel cost for Shree Cement for this quarter is 1.48 against 1.82 of March 2024.
Right. Lead distance and trade share?
Yeah. Lead distance is 446 for this quarter against 435 for March 2024.
Trade share?
Trade share is 73%. It is same in the.
Yeah. Right. And what was the cement realization Mr. Cement mentioned during the opening remark?
Yeah. Cement realization for the quarter is INR 4,758 per ton.
Sorry, misunderstood.
4758.
Okay. INR 4,758. Okay. Against?
Against December 2024, it's 4,554.
4554 in December.
Right. In March 2024, it was INR 4,722.
Yeah. What is the incentive we have approved for the full year? Or we have booked in revenues?
The figure is not presently available. We will share with you.
Okay. Sir, what is your thought process going forward in terms of expansion? We have 3 million ton, which is deferred, and 3 million ton in Kotla. This Bangur branding unit, I think last call we had mentioned that the clearances are awaited. What is the status on that and the 3 million ton at Rajasthan, which you have deferred?
As I said, what we have put up, we are announcing, yeah, on several locations where we are already in the advanced levels of preparedness now to launch an expansion plan and launch expansion. At the right time, we will be very happy to share with all of you once we start the work at those sites.
Okay. So currently, whatever you have announced is for expansion till FY 2026. For expansions beyond FY 2026, you would be making announcements soon, right?
Yeah. Yeah.
Okay. Total CapEx for FY 2026, which is earmarked on the ongoing project?
About 3,000?
Yeah. 3,000.
It's about INR 3,000 crore.
3,000 crore. Great, sir. I'll come back and queue. Thank you.
Thank you so much. The next question is from the line of Raghav Malik from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Thank you for the opportunity. Just a question on pricing. You mentioned that average realization for cement are higher, about 5% sequentially. Is it possible to bifurcate that between North and East to give some idea of pricing in these two regions for the industry?
If I may reply, you see, basically, we shall share with you regional prices. But then you are generally aware that North was quite a vibrant market, and East had picked up quite a lot. Now, since last two months, South has also substantially picked up. I will ask Mr. Jajoo to look at the numbers and send you a mail, or you send him a mail, and he will reply to it. If he has the numbers just now, he will share it. Give me a minute.
Sure, sir.
Yeah. So before it's so. Mr. Jajoo has some numbers. He'll speak.
Yeah. The realization in Northern market, it is up as compared to year on year. It is up by 3%. For East, it is up by 1%. For South, it is down by around 5-6%. For quarter on quarter, the Northern realization is up by 4%, 8% for East, and 2% for South.
Okay. North is at 4% and East is 8% sequentially.
Yes. Yes.
How is this spread in April? You could share that as well.
I think it will be better if we discuss this in the next quarterly call.
Sure, sir. Sure. Thank you. That's all from my side. Thank you.
Thank you very much. The next question is from the line of Shravan Shah from Dolat Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you. Sir, just continuing the previous question, just on a directional front, is it fair to say from the average of the fourth quarter for us, the realization would be a 2% plus kind of QoQ till now on a broader sense?
My friend, a broader sense does not, it may give you some kind of a directional picture. It is better you wait for one more quarter, we come back with firm numbers. What is the point in telling you it is 2% and then explaining it is 5% or it is 1%? Let us be realistic. We have not taken anybody up the garden path. We would like to deliver first and then explain instead of proclaiming first and then explaining.
Yeah. No, sir. If you can share a couple of housekeeping data points this quarter in terms of the sales mix North, East, and South, and if possible for entire full year, if you can share.
This I am leaving to Mr. Jain to explain to you. Okay? Just give me a minute.
Yeah. Yeah. This blended ratio for the quarter is 69%.
Product mix was North, East, West, South.
Yeah. The North India sale is 54.7, East is 32.7, and the South is 11. The total is 98.4.
Okay. Okay. Got it. Got it. In terms of blended share and the capacity utilization for even region-wise, is it possible?
It is 72% at company level and 74% in North. East is 79% and the South is 51%.
This is the blended, sir, you said?
Yeah.
Okay. Okay. Got it. In terms of the premium share, obviously, we have reached 15% plus. How do we want to take it by end of this year?
My friend Bhandari, again, you are asking us to proclaim something. Please, we have said that we have set our direction towards this. Let the numbers evolve over the quarters, and we will come and explain to you every quarter what we have achieved. Please understand, in my last 40 years with this company, I have never proposed to proclaim and then explain. I have delivered and explained. Please leave it like that. It is far easier for us and you to come with real data and work on real data. Proclaiming something and then you are explaining it into a worksheet and then explaining us or asking us for explanation probably is not a good strategy, in my opinion.
Yeah. Lastly, sir, depreciation for FY 2026 would be how much because we will be adding a different in terms of the capacity?
Listen to me. Listen to me. It is about INR 3,000-INR 3,200 crore.
No. Depreciation also.
Depreciation. I heard you correctly. I have given you depreciation numbers only.
Okay. Thank you, and all the best.
Yeah.
Thank you so much. The next question is from the line of Mr. Naveen Sahadeo from ICICI Securities. Please go ahead, sir.
Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity. Sir, recently, there was an update about limestone mines being granted in Jaisalmer. I think just a few days back, there was an exchange notification to that effect. And in the past, I think we have had some mines being procured under auctions in Gujarat as well. I believe this one, since you did not mention anything about auctions, I'm assuming it is under the old regime. So my question was, is it fair to assume that in the run-up to 80 million ton, one of those capacities is possible to come up either in Gujarat or in Jaisalmer or both? Thank you.
Indeed. The Jaisalmer limestone was awarded to us in 2008, and then it got caught in the quagmire of various legal appeals and counter-appeals. Final order has come to us about a week or 10 days back. It is certainly within our radar to, as a part of our expansion strategy, Gujarat, we are working, and many other sites we are working. Naveen, you know me. We'll keep on updating you at the right time. Yes, they are part of our overall expansion strategy, for sure.
Thank you. My last question. What is the net debt as of the end of March 2024?
Since when you started using the term net?
Sorry. Net debt.
That is INR 5,400 crore roughly.
Helpful. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you very much. The next question is from the line of Mokshankar from Om Capital. Please go ahead.
I would like to know the total clinker capacity and the total limestone reserves that we have. Hello. Am I audible?
Yes, sir. You're audible.
Okay. Ask me one more question.
Can you speak a little loudly, please?
I would like to know our total clinker capacity and our total limestone reserves that we have.
We would not like to be very vocal on our limestone reserves. We would certainly point out to you that our first limestone reserve expires in 2046 sometime. We have sufficient limestone to service all our existing capacities and our new expansions coming up. Up to that time, for sure, maybe more. We may not like to put a number to it. Your first part of the question was that you had two questions. One was on limestone. Yeah. Can you explain to me? Yeah. Mr. Jajoo will give you the clinker capacity.
The current clinker capacity is 36.7 million tons. By the end of financial year 2025-2026, it will become 44 million tons.
Okay. Okay.
Thank you so much. The next question is from the line of Rahul Gupta from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you for taking my question. I have a strategy-related question. I understand the idea is to maximize cash earnings, and towards this, we saw the management and company did very well shifting towards higher pricing at the expense of volumes in the recent quarters. Now that you have guided for high single-digit volume growth vis-à-vis 6.5%-7.5% for the industry, how are you looking at cement pricing during the year? Are you turning a little bearish on cement prices from here on in lieu of you looking to grow faster than the industry? Thank you.
Now, Mr. Gupta, let me put it like this. You cannot, in a supply-overhang scenario, enjoy the cake and have it too. You have to play an equilibrium between volumes and prices. We have told you we have never aspired to be the number one cement seller in the country. We aspire to be the most profitable cement company in the country. Top line is never in the command of any commodity manufacturer or supplier. We'll take whatever the price is. We'll try to maximize the profit, cash profit, and net profit through a proper mix of volume and price prevailing at that time. So we will not.
I understand that. I'm trying to understand how to look at industry pricing through the year. We have already seen good pricing trends over the past few months, and a lot of capacity is expected to come in the system. In lieu of that, just trying to understand how to look at cement pricing through the year. Nothing related to CME for that.
Mr. Gupta, please appreciate that nobody sets up a capacity with the hope that he will smash the market share. He will have to fight to get the market share. If he fights, then he really needs very deep pockets. You can't fight without resources. Which is the player we are talking about? What his strategy will be? What region he will be coming into? What kind of financial strength he has? It has to all be taken into consideration to understand what his pricing strategy may be. Please understand that all existing player balance sheets are quite strong, and they can take anyone head-on as a matter of fact in matching the prices. Nobody likes to give up market share in a commodity business. It will be very difficult for us.
Having said this, I have a lot of confidence in the growth prospects of the industry and general growth prospects of the country. I expect the prices should hold and not crash.
Great. Thank you so much. These are my questions.
Thank you so much. The next question is from the line of Jyoti Gupta from Nirmal Bang. Please go ahead.
Could you please talk about the numbers? I have just one question. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Ma'am, your voice is not clear.
Is it clear now?
Yes, ma'am. Please speak something.
Yes. Yeah. Good evening, everyone. These are the numbers. Just one question from my side. All your press releases, I understand we will be setting up something like 15 million tons by FY 2026. I just need clarity on that. Correct me if I am wrong if it is 15 million tons that Shree Cement is coming up with. I just need to understand by when, and do we have the entire 15 million tons coming by the end of FY 2026, or is it staggered to be next year as well? Just on that.
You have to understand two things. The capacity you are talking about may be the ballpark number, but then how much of additional clinker and how much of grinding is being set up, you have to consider them both separately.
Exactly, sir. Could you please provide me with the data?
I will hand over the mic to Mr. K. K. Jain to reply to how much of clinker is being added and how much of grinding is being added.
Okay. Okay. Our present clinker capacity is 36.7 million, and in the current year, that is 2026, the capacity we are adding 7.3 million ton clinker capacity. By end of 2026, the clinker capacity would be 44 million. Same way in the cement capacity, currently we have 62.8. This includes the one unit which we have started at Etah and another grinding unit at Raipur. In 2026, we are mother two new grinding units will come, one at Raipur and one at Kodla, and another is at Rasai or Jagaran. This would be around 6 million. Total capacity by 2026 would be 68.8 million.
Sir, could you also give me the timeline? I completely understand the capacity breakup. Could you give me the timeline? Is it the end of five months that you're coming up, or is it anticipated anytime during the next quarter?
All right.
In the second quarter as well.
Jyoti, this is Bhandari.
Yes, sir.
Clinker and grinding, additional except whatever has been commissioned, should be done by FY 2026.
Okay. So which means the supply would be FY 2027. That is all my question. Thank you so much, sir.
All right. Thank you.
Yeah.
Thank you so much. The next question is from the line of Amit Murarka from Axis Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, yeah. Thanks for the opportunity again. Just had a question, a data-related question. Could you kind of spell out what was the other operating revenue in the quarter as well as maybe FY 2025?
150 crore of other income. Other revenue, it was.
Other operating income, right? INR 150 crore, it is?
You hear from Mr. K. K. Jain.
Yeah. Other operating income is included in the revenue, and it is not. Mother said, "We will give you offline, please." It just stands by.
Oh, okay. Okay. Sure. Also, if you could spell out the interest sales also in Q4?
I don't have data.
We will send you offline, please.
It is very, very minuscule, yeah?
Okay. Very minuscule. Okay. Sure, sure. That's all then. Thank you.
Thank you so much. The next question is from the line of Satyadeep Jain from Ambit Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you for the follow-up. Just one question on future greenfield expansions. As you can see from limestone, looking at Jaisalmer and Kutch, what is the rationale for this? I know you already have multiple lines in Rasai Awar, and you have Navalgarh also. That would mean that there is limited potential there for expansion that you're expanding out into Jaisalmer and all. Just want to understand the thought process.
No, no, no, no. You are putting the cart before the horse. We have not said that we will not expand in other regions of Northeast. We have just said that Jaisalmer, we have won the mine, and it is certainly on our target, the target now to expand. That does not mean that I am not going to expand at Jaisalmer or Navalgarh or any other place where I have limestone. It has to be a constant dynamic study of how the market behaves, how the market evolves, and what pricing power and what premium product production we can push. It has not. Please do not consider our thinking to go to Jaisalmer is because of constraints on the limestone reserves at all other Northeast plants we have. Please do not misconstrue it like that.
Just commenting. I was just.
We have space. Jaisalmer is a virgin area. How much market we can establish there profitably? What kind of lead distances will be there? All these are under study. Since we have got a limestone, which is really a difficult resource to get nowadays, we have taken it in our strategic plan process, and someday we will come up with a concrete plan of setting up in Jaisalmer.
Okay. Thank you so much.
Meta Ultra Point.
Thank you so much. The next question is from the line of Kiri Jasun, YES SECURITIES. Please go ahead.
Good evening, sir. Thanks for taking my question, and congratulations for a good setup of numbers. In fact, it's a great setup number, I can say. My first question is that what is our clinker capacity utilization for a whole year?
Mr. Jain?
Yeah. For the full year, the clinker capacity utilization is around 68%. For this quarter, it is 76%. Okay. If I see from the past few years, three years, I can see our capacity utilization has actually declined. Other larger players are doing actually 70%, 75%, 80% of capacity utilization in our key market region. Again, on top of that, we are adding more capacity, and it's a good thing that we are going to capture the market share by instilling 80 million to becoming 80 million tons of capacity. If in case we are not much focused on the volume in terms of capacity utilization, higher capacity utilization, how is it going to help more in the profitability? I understand that we are more focused on reducing the cost structure and focusing on the pricing.
If I'm not wrong, we do not have any kind of control on the pricing, but yes, we have control on the cost structure. Top line growth, we can expect from the volume growth as well as more into pricing. Barring pricing scenario, how are we going to see this new capacity addition, how is it going to pan out, and what's your strategy that we can have a great volume so that our profitability will be more? Thank you very much.
This is Bhandari. Number one, you are assuming that there is a presumption in your entire premise that India will not grow or cement demand will not grow. That is the underlying because if it is going to grow, then everybody's top line will grow, mine too. The difference between everybody's growth in top line and our growth in top line is we do not want to be highest volume producers. We want to be the highest profit takers, which we have proven in spite of falling capacity utilization or whatever. Please understand that our top line will grow in consonance with growth in market. We will not be laggards. We may be slightly ahead of setting up capacity, but please understand we do not borrow. We utilize our own cash resources to set up capacities. We are the lowest cost capacity creators.
I have explained the concept of our trying to take the option at a delta of 2%. Profit comes out of production. Cash comes out of marketing. We must set up and produce only if we can get cash from the marketing in a profitable manner. It is a very difficult question, my dear friend, that you sit down, do an Excel sheet, and extrapolate or interpolate so much.
Okay. Yeah. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, sir. One last question. What is the non-trade mix discent?
I'm giving it to Mr. Jain to answer that.
Yeah. So non-trade is 27% descent.
Sorry?
It's that the trade sale is 73% and non-trade is 27%.
Last year, it was in FY 2024?
Same in last quarter also, previous quarter, in December 2024 and then March 2024.
Okay. Okay. Thank you, sir. Thank you very much.
Thank you so much. The next question is from the line of Uttam Kumar Shrimal from Axis Securities Limited. Please go ahead.
Yes, sir. Thanks for the opportunity and conversation on the good set of numbers. Sir, my question pertains to RMC business. What is the current status of RMC business? How many plants we have set up or going to set up, and what kind of revenue we are expecting from this particular business?
As we mentioned earlier also, RMC is a new foray for us. Yeah, it's about a year or so that we have started this division for us. We are currently operating about 15 plants, but the plan is to grow RMC rapidly. At this moment, we are looking at various markets where more and more units will be set up, and this process will continue.
I'm happy to say that there are several plants in our RMC division which are already EBITDA positive, which is they have achieved in a fast setup, fast ramp-up of those units, especially in the markets of Mumbai or markets of Hyderabad. This will continue, yeah. We expect that over a period of time, we will have at least 50 odd RMC units, but at this moment, I will not be in a position to tell you the timeline for that, yeah. This is something that we will continue to do, and every quarter, we will be able to give you an update on how many RMC plants we have.
Okay, sir. And sir, two quick questions. Sir, what was our goal this quarter?
Sorry to interrupt, but you may please return to the question queue for follow-up questions.
Yeah. Thanks. Yeah. Thanks a lot and all the best.
Thank you so much. The next question is from the line of Ashish Jain from Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Good evening. Sir, my question is more on the cost structure in the three regions. Can you give some color on how the cost stacks up across the three regions? One, on manufacturing basis, and secondly, if possible, on delivered cost basis also including freight.
My dear friend, this is Bhandari here. Of course, these data will be available, and we'll be happy to share. Can you please address my curiosity on your asking such region-specific cost numbers?
Okay. Sir, one reason is going ahead. Yeah. So your market mix? Yeah. I can. Am I audible?
Please understand that it is the net profit at company level which is available as workload to the shareholders. Region will leave it to us. We will set up capacity wherever it is more profitable to us.
No, sir.
You must have some faith in our business acumen. We will tell you our overall numbers. Please do not ask us questions which may have strategic importance to us.
Right. Sir, I get that. My only point was that going ahead, as we expand capacity in, let's say, South or in West, the share of those regions would increase. I'm not looking at absolute numbers. My idea was more to understand the relative positioning of region if possible. I understand the strategic importance of region.
I very much appreciate, but please understand that if I am using my asset side of the balance sheet completely fungible between fixed asset and cash, any delta in profitability, irrespective of region, will be incremental to my crockey.
Right. Okay. Okay.
We will be maximizing our capacity.
Right. Okay. Sir, secondly, just in the power cost this quarter, when I see it on a per ton basis, it has gone up. It seems like our power revenues have also gone up quite a bit sequentially.
Where did you get the power revenue? I do not have that number with me because it is reasonably small. It is reasonably small.
Sir, but then what explains the increase in power cost sequentially? Because your.
Sir, sorry to interrupt. Sir, sorry to interrupt, but you may join the question.
It's a continuation of the same question.
You may.
Can I go ahead?
You may join the question queue again.
Sure. Not a problem. Thank you.
The next question is from the line of Rashid from Citi Group. Please go ahead.
I'm just one question. On a sequential basis, how has pure cement cost moved?
Come back again. You want cost structure sequentially between December 2024 and March 2025? Am I correct?
Yeah. Just pure cement, how that's moved?
Yeah. Pure cement, I will give it to Jain. He will be able to explain to you.
Okay.
We don't have that data readily available. Rashid will send it to you separately.
Okay.
We have the blended cost. I have the blended cost with me, which is roughly 2% up quarter on quarter, and it is around 3% down year-on-year basis. You want specifically for cement, so that is not available right now.
Yeah. So blended is up, right, on a sequential basis?
Yes.
You said?
Yes.
Yeah. So that's what I'm trying to understand. On a pure cement basis, will it be down, or will that also be up? That's the direction we do.
Just check off the box and then let me know.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you so much. The last question is from the line of Prashal Choudhury from CL Capital . Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thanks a lot for the opportunity, sir, and good set of numbers. Sir, I just wanted to know the roll rate mix for Q4 and full year and petcoke mix also.
Before I ask Mr. Jain to explain all these numbers to you, एक बात आपसे करता हूं. I know Prabhudas Lilladher there for maybe 40 years.
Correct.
Mr. Neeraj Akhoury, when he was in Mumbai, he was a neighbor to Amisha Vora. Please understand that sometimes when you say good set of numbers, it disheartens us. This kind of what prevents you from saying that these are the best set of numbers you have seen? Anyway, I'm giving it to Mr. Jain to answer to your other question.
Yeah. The railroad mix is rail percentage is around 11.3% for this quarter, and for full year, it's 11.8%. In regard to the petcoke percentage, it is 95% petcoke and the rest is coal and the alternate fuel.
Full year?
Full year is almost 3% is coal and alternate fuel, and the rest is petcoke.
Okay. Okay.
It's around 95%.
I just wanted to ask the status of railway sidings, which we talked about in first quarter. We are going to cover all the units with railway siding. I think for 2025, we are targeting Purulia and Patas.
Purulia has already been done. Patas is also commissioned.
Commissioned.
Commissioned. Both are fully operational, and the rest siding we will set by mid-2027 or early 2028 will be explained.
Okay. Thank you, sir. I'm just reflecting.
Thank you.
Thank you so much. I now hand the conference over to management for closing comments.
Thank you, everybody. Thanks. I think some of you or many of you for complimenting us, though in a very polite language on our results. As I said, it is a direction. It is a strategy in execution. It is a journey. We are happy that we are seeing some good lights, but not reached the destination as yet. Hopefully, when we meet you next time, we will have more smiles and more news to share. Thank you, everybody, for joining us. Gratitude from Shree Cement Limited. Thank you.
Thank you so much. On behalf of ICICI Securities Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.