Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Nuvoco Vistas Corporation Limited Q3 FY 2026 earnings conference call. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star, then zero on your touchtone phone. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Bishnu Sharma, Head of Investor Relations from Nuvoco. Thank you, and over to you. Thank you, Azizi. Good evening, everyone, and warm welcome to Nuvoco's Q3 FY 2026 earnings call. The results along with the earnings presentation have been uploaded to the stock exchange website yesterday, and I hope you had a chance to review the key numbers. Let me first share the key highlights for Q3 FY 2026, after which we will open the floor for questions. The quarter began on a challenging note, but as we progressed, we started to see encouraging signs of recovery in overall demand. This improvement was particularly visible in the latter part of the quarter, as the impact of earlier macro headwinds begin to subside. Encouragingly, capital expenditure by both central and state governments seems to have gained momentum, supporting infra activity and cement demand. With this gradual pickup, the broader demand environment appears to be strengthening, setting a constructive tone for the quarter ahead. That said, a significant portion of the planned spending is yet to be executed, around 45% of central CapEx and nearly about 61% of state CapEx cement spending as of November 2025. The healthy pipeline of spending projects gives us comfort that this traction could continue in the coming months. Additionally, as an above-normal monsoon, a softer interest environment and growing consumer confidence, particularly in rural areas, further reinforce our outlook for sustained demand growth going forward. Now, turning to our performance for the quarter, we delivered robust results despite the early challenges from macro headwinds as mentioned earlier. Volumes grew 7% year-on-year to 5 million tons, the highest Q3 volumes ever recorded in our company's history. December was particularly strong, with volume growth of 20%, demonstrating our strong existent capabilities and the resilience of underlying demand. EBITDA for the quarter rose approximately 50% year-over-year to INR 386 crores, even as price moderated more than the benefit passed through, following the revised GST rate coupled with macro headwinds. Our emphasis remained squarely on premiumization, cost efficiency, which significantly lowers the impact of the price moderation. We are pleased to report that the premium products sustained their share of trade volumes at a historic high of 44%, marking the consecutive quarter at this elevated level. We have consistently expanded our premium base over time. For the nine months of FY 2026, premiumization stood at 43%, reflecting a steady uplift of nearly 300 basis points over the FY 2025 baseline of 40%. This establishes new, stronger base for us going forward, and we'll continue to support our performance. On the cost front, we continue to efficiently manage our operational costs as we achieved the lowest blended cost in the last 17 quarters at 1.41 per Mcal, despite the recent uptick in petcoke prices. Raw material cost burden, distribution cost burden also declined quarter on quarter, supported by operational efficiency gains. Coming to cement prices, given the improvement in demand conditions and positive outlook, the company undertook a price increase in January, which is expected to further improve our performance going forward. Let me now turn to the balance sheet. During the quarter, we raised INR 600 crores through CCD issuances, which were utilized to replace an equivalent amount of short-term bridge financing, thereby reducing overall debt levels. We expect to complete an additional INR 600 crores in CCD issuance in the near term to substitute the remaining INR 600 crores of short-term bridge financing. Our continued focus on a disciplined approach to debt management reflects prudent capital allocation and will support the company's growth agenda going forward. Let me briefly touch upon the Vadraj Cement Plant. The refurbishment and project execution remains on schedule, with operationalization of clinker unit and grinding unit planned in phases from Q3 FY 2027 to Q1 FY 2028. To give you a quick update on our project execution, we have made steady progress at both Kutch and Surat. At this site, key equipment is undergoing extensive overhauls. The engineering, tendering, and ordering of all goods and service packages at Surat are now complete, while activities at Kutch are progressing as per schedule. Deliveries on the electrical and instrumentation front remain on track for both locations, and mechanical supplies have already started arriving at site. We have also applied for all the required permits to operationalize this plan in line with our planned timelines. On the logistic front, the engineering scale plan and detailed project report for the Kutch railway line have been submitted to Indian Railways, and the execution order is now at an advanced stage of processing. By the first half of FY 2027, we expect to complete the overall work and equipment installation, followed by trial runs in accordance with OEM protocols. We will subsequently establish operations from the control room. Accordingly, during FY 2027, Surat grinding unit and Kutch clinker unit will become operational, while in H1 FY 2028, Kutch grinding unit will get commissioned. The east expansion projects of adding 4 million tons per annum in phases also remain on target. With the east expansion and commissioning of Vadraj Plant, the company's total cement capacity will scale up to 35 million tons per annum. For the ongoing expansion at Vadraj and the east expansion, the company's growth agenda will continue with a firm focus on balance sheet discipline. We have several strategic options ahead, including expanding our presence in the north through a brownfield project or pursuing a greenfield development in the Gulbarga region, aimed at strengthening our position in the western and central markets. Furthermore, our recent preferred bid status for the JMK R2 limestone block in Jodhpur and Pali as our mining reserve base, providing a strong platform for future expansion. Lastly, to briefly highlight our ongoing digitization efforts, we have further strengthened efficiency and transparency throughout the operation. Our customer portal now handles approximately 99% of the total orders, offering real-time control and precision in order management. Following its success in cement, we launched customer portals for our MBM business too. During the quarter, we introduced Nuvoco Zero M Unnati app under MBM to digitize influencer loyalty, driving higher engagement, greater transparency, efficiency, and data-powered channel growth. On logistics, the transporter portal now covers inbound and outbound logistics across all plants, delivering end-to-end visibility while minimizing manual interventions. That concludes my opening remarks. I'm here with Mr. Jayakumar Krishnaswamy, Managing Director of Nuvoco Vistas, Mr. Maneesh Agrawal, Chief Financial Officer. We're happy to answer any questions. Over to you, Azizi. Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, 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. We'll take our first question from the line of Jashandeep Singh Chadha from Nomura. Please go ahead. Hello. Can you use your handset more, please? Your line is not very clear. Yeah. Is it better now? Yes. Please go ahead. Yes. Yeah. Hi. Thank you for the opportunity and congratulations on a good set of numbers despite the weaker pricing. Just wanted to understand a couple of things. Firstly, you mentioned that Nuvoco took a price hike this month. So I wanted to understand when did you take that price hike and how much was the price hike? And is the price hike sustained in the market? First question was that. If you can clarify on that, then I'll proceed with my next question. Yeah. I guess after the quarter three, in terms of pricing, January, December, all demand improved, and then the sustained demand continues in January as well. So around 10th to 12th, around that time, we have taken a price rise in non-trade across the geographies where we operate. And also in trade channel, we've attempted a price increase in east as well as north. So we'll have to wait for a week or so to see whether the price hike which we have taken sustained. But as of now, things look positive. Okay. Okay. Good to know, sir, and has the demand tapered off after the price hike or the momentum continues which you saw in the first 10 days? Other than the 14, 15, these are festive times, so I guess I'll have to discount two days before and today. I guess demand is good in the first 10, 12 days of the month. So give or take, I think typically after Sankranti, demand improves in all the regions. So that's been the past trend. So it should continue to improve going forward as well. Okay. Good to know, sir. My second question is on cost. Nuvoco has been giving impressive cost numbers. Now, recently, we are seeing petcoke prices are going up. So I wanted to understand in the fourth quarter what will be the impact of that and going forward as well. And also, if you can shed some light on your CapEx plan, the amount for next year, FY 2027 and 2028, and how should we look at this? Yeah. As Bishnu mentioned in his initial comment, our fuel cost, would be some million k cal, trended at INR 1.41 in Q3, which if you could have seen in the last many quarters, we have come to around thereabout kind of a number for many few quarters now. We will continue this trend. Already, petcoke prices have gone up in the month of December, and including I'm talking about the current trend of pricing. I guess in Q4, I'm still looking at a similar kind of number, give or take a little bit of 0.01 or something like that, but that's all insignificant changes as they happen. These are basically backed up by two, three aspects of the company. One is to work on our AFR agenda in north, the two plants, as well as in Risda. The second one is using domestic open market coal. For the first time in the last many years, in the preceding quarter, we have started using a good amount of domestic open market coal in our north plants, and that's kind of helped us sober the cost lines of fuel in the north, as well as increased our domestic open market coal as well in our east plant, and last but not the least, our focus has been to kind of reduce the petcoke consumption from a high of 48% all the way it come down to 41% now, which is an impressive number. With this kind of petcoke production, we would be able to offset the rise in petcoke prices, if any. Our teams have been very innovative and trying to use what do you call power plant reject coal and as well as coal washery reject coal for our CPP plants, bringing down the power cost of CPP from close to about INR 0.95 per MC al to as low as INR 0.78 per MC al. So basically, substitute reduced petcoke consumption. Second is get increased focus on AFR, and last one is to kind of work on CPP coal. With all these initiatives, I think we should be able to defray the potential increase in petcoke prices at prevalent levels. In the unlikely event of a big time increase, I guess that's going to be a challenge for the entire industry. But as we see today, we have fuel stocks for a month or two right now. With the fuel stocks which we have, we should be able to sail through quarter four. On the second point about CapEx plans, in the previous call, we had spoken about the overall CapEx outlay for the company. Obviously, we have the CapEx for the existing operations as well as CapEx for the Vadraj. So overall, this year, as of nine months, we have spent close to about INR 320 crores of CapEx as of December. And in the balance three months, we should be spending close to about INR 200-odd crores. So for the full year, the CapEx outlook is coming anywhere between INR 620 crores -INR 670 crores. Okay. And if I can squeeze in one last question, a lot of advantages that you mentioned of Nuvoco, especially on cost front, are in the east, in the eastern assets. But then we will start in a local cart. A lot of these advantages will not be there. So in the initial years, can you give a sense of how much the cost might increase as capacity ramps up at Vadraj? We're talking about what happens when Vadraj starts. Okay. Yes, sir. So Vadraj starts, look, anyway, Vadraj is going to be run on petcoke fuel for kiln similar to our Nimbol and Chittor. So the ballpark number will be same as what Chittor and Nimbol numbers are in terms of fuel cost per kiln. The other advantage is Vadraj in that area we have lignite. So the captive power plant is going to be based on lignite as a fuel. So when we have done the initial calculation, our energy cost for Vadraj plant, other than the startup challenge of starting a new plant, other than that, I guess in terms of somewhat steady state, our fuel cost, energy cost, it will also have a CPP similar to what we have in Chittor and Nimbol. So it's kind of a copy of our north operations. The cost lines of Vadraj in terms of power and fuel will be more or less same as what we get in Nimbol and Chittor as we start the plant. Understood. Thank you so much for joining back with you. Thank you. We'll take our next question from the line of Amit Murarka from Axis Capital. Please go ahead. Hi. Good evening. Thanks for the opportunity. So just a question on leverage. So in the presentation, I think you've shown debt at INR 42.7 crore and plus INR 600 crores as short-term bridge loan and CCDs. So just wanted to understand a bit more about the CCDs as to what are the conversion terms and by when does it come up for conversion. During the last call and the one before, we have already said that now when Nuvoco reaches INR 3,5 00 to INR 4,000 crores, that's when we kind of start our next expansion, which that's how we started the entire Vadraj process. The entire fundraising bid for Vadraj was we had to pay INR 1,800 crores as an acquisition cost for Vadraj. To get that INR 1,800 crores funding, we had started with INR 600 crores of long-term debt and another INR 1,200 crores of bridge financing till the CCD route was declared by the organization. First, I'll explain the INR 600 crores. The INR 600 crores sits in this 4,217, as mentioned in our investor presentation. The INR 4,217 crores debt level at December 2025, it has built-in number of INR 600 crores. If you have to do a like-to-like comparison of our past periods, this number is 3,617. Compared to December last year, it was 4,350. That's the kind of debt reduction deleveraging the company has been able to do in the last few years. So 3,617 add 600, 4,217, and that 600 is written off the books as a long-term debt for Vadraj acquisition. We mentioned that the INR 1,200 crores will be in the form of a CCD. I will ask Maneesh to explain how we have gone about doing the INR 1,200 crores into INR 600 crore tranches. So in terms of the specific terms of the CCD, which is the tranche that has been done in the month of November as one of the queries, so basically, there is a call option and a put option as a part of the CCD. So Nuvoco will have the call option and will have the right to do its own obligation to buy out the investor depending upon our balance sheet position at that point in time and the market conditions. So basically, this call option is sizable at the end of the fifth year, at the end of the 5.5 year, and at the end of the sixth year. So these CCDs are for a period of seven years. And so as I said, the call option is after 5.5 years, 6 years. So these INR 600 crores CCDs, Series A, this is into three tranches of INR 200 crores each that I've talked about. And it gets converted into three 200s at the end of seven years. And it carries a coupon rate of 0.1% in the books. Yeah. The INR 600 crores, just to get a breakup from Maneesh, so it gets consummated at seven, five years plus. At that time, Nuvoco's balance sheet will be much stronger than where we are currently. So we have the call option at the time. And as Maneesh says, think of 200, 200, 200. The second INR 600 crores, we have still not completed the short-term debt into CCD, I guess due to year-end holidays in the market. So we have still under discussion, should be concluded in the coming days. Okay. So what I understood is that it is compulsory convertible into equity at the end of the seventh year. That's right. What would be the price at which it gets converted? So I think you can take these things offline or separately from the investor relations department. So as I said, it is a call option at the end of fifth year, five years, sixth year from Nuvoco's perspective. So the intent would be depending on the market conditions and. At that time, we should have a pretty strong balance sheet to kind of use the call option and repay the CCD. That's the idea which we have. In the most unlikely event, that's when I guess the put option will be exercised on the promoter group company. Understood. So you are basically the idea is to essentially repay off this in the fifth year itself and through the cash flows that you will generate in this period and not really wait for the conversion into equity. No. Absolutely. That's the intention. I guess as we speak, we will be three years from now at a CAGR of 7%. Obviously, the business will grow to a much higher volume and also with the volumes coming from Vadraj. And with the overall, what do you call, market opportunity, we should be able to generate much more cash and the balance sheet should be much stronger. And as I mentioned, with the kind of business projections which we have in place, we should also be able to fund the Vadraj Capex through internal accruals. And then we should be able to retire this CCD. But I just want to mention one other point to you is many times I have mentioned in almost all times I mentioned this particular point in the call, stating that as a company, we are comfortable operating the company with the debt levels of INR 3,500-INR 4,000 crores. That would continue to be. We are not going to be going into the path of retiring all the debt. I'm sure if really business scales up to that level, this debt level also should come down. But we would be able to we have the ambition of growing the company beyond Vadraj as well. So I guess we are comfortable with the debt level of about INR 3,500. And at that time, with EBITDA is coming, we should meet our covenant. So we are targeting EBITDA to debt level around two-ish at the time as well. So comfortable position to retire the CCD on a call option and still grow the company. Sure. Just the last question on the CCD bid. So at the fifth year, when you have the call option to buy the debt out, will it be bought out at INR 600 crores or will there be something additional that it requires to be paid? It has to be additional because that's how the whole structuring is done because all the so-called interest adjustment will happen into the principal of 600, which is in the form of CCD. And then the payout will be happening on top of all the yearly compounded number when it comes to fifth year. So what is the implied interest? I just want to understand while I understand that this is a structured transaction debt. No worries, so what we will do is to share this, so this should get into a long discussion, so may I request you to reach out to us, come over to our office, or let's set up a call. We'll explain all of it in complete detail because obviously all of it is in the public domain, so we should be able to give you all details, so anything that is needed, reach out to us. We should give you every bit of detail. Okay. Sure. Sure. Thank you so much, sir. Thank you. We'll take our next question from the line of Satyadeep Jain from Ambit Capital. Please go ahead. Hi. Thank you. Just a follow-up to this CCD question. The remaining INR 600 crores you've still been tied up. Have you locked in? Basically, the investors are more or less identified. Is it the same set of investors? Is it just some procedural delay? Just wanted to understand where are you in the process. It's been a while since that Vadraj deal happened. Obviously, you've closed INR 600 crores. The remaining INR 600, we'll try to find out similar investors, different. The structuring is also going to be similar as we look at that INR 600 crores. Yeah. So the structuring is more or less going to be the same. Maybe the numbers could be slightly different because it's not going to be exactly the same set of people who will do. We are more or less at the final stage of discussions. So it is nothing to do with any challenge or anything which we have faced. Just that year-end happened and then the thing markets with the people with whom we are working have just come back. So it should happen. I can't give you a timeline whether it will happen in a week or 10 days or two weeks. But suffice to say that we are on top of it and this should happen pretty much in the near future. Okay. And on this Vadraj asset, just maybe an update on the rail line. I know it had already reached Naliya. What is the status for last mile connectivity from Naliya to your plant? And then from there also, have you seen other players start basically transporting from that particular stretch or is it still in future? That's kind of more or less stitched up. The railway survey is already completed within Naliya into a place called Vayor. Vayor is a station which is about 4.5 km from our plant. So the railways have started working on that. And I think the land acquisition railways, that is going to be done by railways. I think their initial project report says that they should be ready completing this up to this Vayor station by end of this year. December, January, they should be able to complete. In parallel, the whole distance for us is there are obviously other than that, there are two other plants. So I think they are also kind of pursuing from the same Vayor Chowk. And then that's when the line branches out to us as well as to the other two players. For us, from that station to our plant, outside our plant boundaries, about 400 meters outside our plant boundaries is our line. So we already started completing the land survey, the railway route finalization, the DPR and ESP is all done. Only on last week, Wednesday, I've kind of approved the purchase order for the party to work on the railway siding as well. So it all happened parallelly. Our plan is to start work from inside the plant. Already we have control over the land. So the work will start from inside our plant compound all the way to the place where the siding comes inside our plant. And in parallel, I guess land acquisition, a lot of patches of land is government land. So we're already working with Government of Gujarat. So by the time work starts, we should have completed the acquisition of the land. When railways is ready by end of this year, we won't be able to complete the project by end of this year. It should take longer than that. Our target is June FY 2028, when the siding is going to be completed. So we are on top of it, on course to complete the other two guys. I guess they should also be working on the same lines. So as of now, the other two guys, their plants are operational. Have they just wanted to understand because the line is there to Naliya? So have other players started shipping? And when you look at the last mile connectivity, and assuming some delays you've been mentioning June 2028, but for at least the monsoon period, due to fair weather port, should we assume lower utilization for the first year till this last mile connectivity is there? Just maybe an update on are other people using that line as of now? Yeah. The Naliya siding is already being used by other companies. So I guess the Naliya siding is anyway operational, though it doesn't have any handling. Obviously, it's a manual handling, loading into box and moving the material. So that one is operational. So push comes to shove, we will start with Naliya. Not a problem at all. And by the time June of next year, monsoon will hit July or something, I guess we should be ready by then. In the unlikely way, Naliya is always there with a little bit additional cost to move material. Other than that, the Jetty route is already there. The Jetty route will also be there. Then the Naliya route will always be there. But I think beyond June FY 2028, we should have the railway siding operating out of the plant. And this stuff should happen within the plant. So as I see today, we are on top of things. Obviously, in a big project like this, there could always be small delays here and there. But I don't foresee any major stumbling block in this because I guess backup in Naliya is there. Jetty is we have already done the bathymetric survey. And then we know how to kind of ferry material out of the Jetty as well. So the Jetty route is also going to be operational around the time the clinker starts production. Naliya will be ready when the clinker production starts. Surat would be operational before that. So by the time siding comes by Q1 end, we should be fully in business moving material. As regards to your second question of whether it needs to scale up of the company, so as I mentioned before, our overall scale-up is one, two, three, four. That's the kind of number which we had in mind, one million in FY 2026, which is we will exit the year at a million kind of annualized million sale in Gujarat. Next year, we should be going into by end of the year, we should get into two million sale and FY 2028 will be three million and FY 2029 will be four million. So that's the broad plan which we have. We are on course to achieving and delivering those one, two, three, four agenda. Lastly, on Gujarat specifically because you're entering, expanding there in a big way, I know you're catering to that market right now with the one million ton that you mentioned through North. But would you have to, as you look at bringing more volumes, when should we look at maybe upscaling your branding team before that capacity comes online? Is there something you need to do to strengthen your position of branding or team there in that region? And when would you start to do that? I guess it's all about timing because if I start spending money right now, I will be wasting money. If I don't spend late, I'll be losing the opportunity. So we have a clear blueprint in place when to kind of get into investment mode in terms of market investment and media investment. But what are the things which you've already done? We have a full-fledged sales force in place. We have the sales office in place. We have the market study done. And then dealer appointments are happening. So by the time, even month of December, we already sold in the state of Gujarat 1.2 lakhs. And our target in Q4 is going to be similar kind of numbers every month. So we have kind of scaled up to this kind of 1.2 would already mean more than a million ton of sale will happen in the first year itself. So that sale cannot happen unless and until you appoint dealer network, which is already there. But as regards advertisement, marketing, and other spend, so I guess we have a blueprint in place. But in this call, I won't be able to tell when I'm going to break. But certainly on top of things. And by the time our Surat grinding unit is operational, we should be having all this in place in the market. Okay. Thank you so much and wish you all the best. Thanks. Thank you. Next question is from the line of Rajesh Ravi from HDFC Securities. Please go ahead. Hello, sir. Hello. Hello, Rajesh. Yeah, hi, sir. Good afternoon. Good evening. My question pertains to the fuel and power cost. This 1.41, when you say per million kcal, this is inclusive of your terminal CPP power cost? Or this is only kiln fuel cost? This is kiln fuel cost. This is kiln fuel cost. Okay. And what would be your in the kiln fuel, what would be the linkage and petcoke and other coal mix? Petcoke on the kiln, as you mentioned, is Q3 FY 2026. We have delivered 41%. Petcoke is the Petcoke usage in our kiln. This has got a higher load in North and a lower load in East. This is a blended load for the company as a whole at 41%. We were at a similar time last year, Q3 FY 2025, we were at 48% Petcoke. We are at 41% Petcoke. Linkage coal is 34%. Non-linkage domestic coal is 15%. Okay. And AFR would be the remaining? AFR 10% is Q3 FY 2026. Here we should improve because last one and a half months, we had two main plants, Risda and Nimbol, under shutdown. So both these plants have the AFR facility. So the number is slightly low. Our target before shutdown of these plants, Nimbol was already at 15% and Chittor was already at 15%. So I guess some ramp-up time will take in the next three months. By Q1 FY 2027, we should be able to get this number to anywhere between 13%-15% at a company level. Understood. And sir, on logistics cost, this quarter has come down. So is there any reduction in lead distance? Or Or what specifically has led to correction in your logistics cost? Our lead distance in Q2 was 331. We are at 326 kilometers this quarter. There's a good reduction of 5 kilometers. Most of the reduction has come in the secondary side. And in fact, it's due to the secondary side reduction where the PTPK is more than the primary PTPK. And that's one reason why our logistics cost has become efficient in Q3 FY 2026. So, because if I look at from Q1, Q2 level, it is down almost by INR 70-INR 80 per ton. If I look at the average of H1, it was INR 15, INR 25. Now it is INR 100 lower in Q3. So what explains this? Three things. One is lead distance, which I mentioned. The second one is all our primary freight has got GPS fitted now. So we are running a very tight system to ensure that any potential leakages in primary is reduced to a big extent. And third, most important thing, you would have also we have mentioned in the year about two years ago, we started the Sonadih and Jajpur railway siding. And for the Jajpur plant by road, that's totally eliminated now. All clinker movement in East is happening only by rail. So that's a big savings in terms of clinker distribution cost has come down, which is we have already one time we had mentioned in the previous call that the clinker distribution cost should clinker movement cost should come down anywhere between INR 25-INR 35 kind of a number. That added to lead distance reduction, GPS implementation, and last but not the least, increased focus in Chhattisgarh sales and Rajasthan sales has also reduced the overall lead distance, which is composite multiple reasons to explain the reduction in distribution cost. So how much is your rail share now, which was 40% in Q2? I can give rail share for the country as well. Just give me a second. Yeah, yeah. On a total basis. Our road share, rail share is 37% and road share is 63%, 9 months FY 2026, and at Q3 also is 63, 37. Okay. Understood. Okay. And sir, lastly, on the power cost, your green power mix is holding up around close to 20%. Okay. What is the opportunity there to increase this? Because most of your peers, they're all inching up to 40%, 50%. So can you give me a break-up of your power usage, grid, CPP, renewable power? And what is the cost there? Currently, our CPP is 150 MW and WHR is close to about 43 MW. Put together, we are at 195 MW, 196 MW. Our plan is to debottleneck all these WHRs to get another three and a half megawatts in the next six to eight months. That's the number one way to increase the green power. We also have very small solar power in Chittor factory, which is a very small one. Along with that, we have a 1 MW solar power in Bhiwani and a 1 MW solar power in Jajpur factory. So these two are the current initiatives. But in the last one month, we have signed an LOI with the company to set up a hybrid power plant in Rajasthan. That should be operational in the next 12-18 months, which should give us a big boost to power cost in Nimbol plant. That's a 50 MW hybrid model which we are working, which should be one of the large investments which we are making going forward. It will not be a CapEx model. It's going to be a group capital model which we have concluded very recently. The work should start very soon. So 50 MW will be the installed capacity and it is solar, right? It is a hybrid, solar plus wind. Okay. Now, I just wanted why my question is the most people are doing this RE power to JV mode to reduce their landed power cost. So what sort of power cost reduction? And given that many companies, if you see your few competitors have recently invested INR 45 crore with a payback period of what we understand is JV projects, have a payback period of less than two years. So is this not an opportunity for you to invest into, say, INR 100 odd crore through JV models and increase your green mix from 20% to 40% plus and in turn also reduce your blended power cost by, say, INR 1 odd? Very much. I think Rajesh it's very clear. If you look at where all we operate, we operate in Rajasthan. That's a big cluster for us. Chhattisgarh is the second biggest power-consuming place, and the third one is West Bengal where we have two GUs, so our highest power cost for the company comes from Rajasthan both because of Petcoke cost as well as the overall power cost in that place is high, and the rules of Rajasthan got changed only recently. As soon as the group captive and the banking model came into economically right strain, we have gone ahead with this group captive model of putting up a plant exclusively for Nimbol. What we do in the second plant is based on our experience of Nimbol. That's the first thing. When it comes to Chhattisgarh, the first thing which is important for us is we run on what we call linkage coal is a big component in Chhattisgarh. And the second one also is all the three plants grid integration in Chittor so not Chittor, sorry, Risda, Arasmeta. So what we run is all these three plants run on a grid. And many times we shut the CPP to use the. Or Or we shut the grid and use power from one factory to another factory. It's a common grid. And we have got a solid benefit out of it. The payback was close to only seven, eight months and more or less the job is done. We will go for a captive plant in Chhattisgarh once the economics of captive plant outweighs the savings which we are making out of our current model. So it's very much in our agenda. It is economics which will drive at this point of time. Lastly, it is Bengal. Bengal, still the group captive model is not working because the rules of that place does not facilitate what we have in Rajasthan. We don't have proper banking arrangement there. So once that is done, that's the place where we will go for. Understood. Understood. And what is your blended power cost currently? Six months, nine months and Q3? Blended power cost for the company is just a second, please. The blended power cost for the company is close to about INR 335 per ton. 325? 335. Double three five. Okay. Understood, sir. That's helpful. Thank you, sir. All the best. Thank you so much. Ladies and gentlemen, in order to ensure management is able to answer queries from all participants, kindly restrict your questions to two at a time. We'll take our next question from the line of Prateek Kumar from Jefferies. Please go ahead. Yeah, good evening. Congrats for great results. I have a couple of questions. Firstly, on your premiumization mix and increasing rate over the last few years, how do you think your gap has closed versus gap has closed or increased versus other brands in the market, and how does increasing premium mix contribute to your EBITDA per ton? We've got some bragging rights on this. So certainly from FY 2022 till FY 2026, nine months, our premiumization percentage is a percentage of trade volumes that moved from 34 to 36 to 37 to 40 to 43. And Q3, we had 44% of premiumization. We have Concreto, which is a flagship premium brand. We also successfully launched Concreto Uno in Bihar, Bengal, and Jharkhand. And the Duraguard Microfiber is sold in Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Rajasthan, Western MP, Haryana, other north markets, and also in Gujarat. So that's something which, and if you look at the rest of the other companies, I'm not going to rattle out other companies. I think they are at a different level. We are at a different level. Certainly, going forward, this will be a source of strength for us. We will further strengthen in FY 2027 and beyond, certainly to increase this number. We are really looking at increasing this number, certainly at 200 basis points every year in the next two to three years. Sorry, my question was regarding how your net realizations or market sizing would have increased or gap on a better side versus your competition during this period and contribution of better premiumization on EBITDA per ton. At the premiumization level, we can't look at an all-India level because premiumization has to be calculated of the base product in that state and the premium in that state. Contribution changes from state to state. Suffice to say that at a premiumization level, we can get anywhere between INR 150-INR 200 increased contribution per ton of cement sold. So that's a big boost. And as we go forward, this will provide us leverage to overall improve the realization for the company. Okay. And my other question is on your focus. So we have seen acceleration in demand growth for your company. Based on current trends, because we had a very high performance base in Q4 last year, we look volume growth accelerating from 7% this quarter. And also a related question on pricing. How is your pricing looking on 10th of January compared to the exit price of December quarter? Yeah. I guess first one is in terms of Q4, obviously our base was high last year. We sold 5.7 million tons in Q4. So I'm really looking at good growth. If you remember my previous call in Q3, I mentioned that demand for the industry should be anywhere between 7% to 8% kind of a number. So we hope to kind of hit that number or cross that number certainly going forward. That's on the demand side, basis side. But I guess Q4 overall, the cement industry also peaks, and then we will certainly ride the demand working up. Second, in terms of the price increase and the impact of price increase, as I said, as an answer to the first question, pricing corrections we took around 10th, 11th of January. So non-trade prices have moved in most markets. Trade prices also have moved in certain markets. I'll have to wait for the next week or 10 days to see whether these prices continue to remain where they did there. I see no reason why prices coming down from where we have taken up because these prices have to sustain going forward and also in a quarter where demand is going to be pretty robust. Thank you, sir, and all the best. Thank you. Thank you. We'll take our next question from the line of Tejas Pradhan from Citi. Please go ahead. Yeah. Hi, sir. So you had mentioned that you would be expecting 7%-8% demand growth in fourth quarter. Now, from fourth quarter last year, if I'm not wrong, we operated at 90% plus capacity utilization, and I assume there'll be a regional skew over there. So how are we placed in terms of having capacity available both from grinding and clinker capacity perspective to sort of meet this demand growth that could be there? Yeah. We have to divide our market between east and north through west. Certainly, in the north markets sourced from Chittor, Nimbol, Bhiwani, we would be operating at near capacity utilization in Q4. That's very clear. The only way we can get more volumes is to go more and more into blended cement, even in non-trade category. And that's our goal in Q4 to kind of get our year six million tons of capacity in north. We will set our assets to come very close to that number. However, in east, we still have a lot of headroom. Our installed capacity in east is close to clinker capacity, not installed capacity. Clinker capacity is close to about 20 million tons at C/K ratio of 2.1. So one of the goals here again is taper down the OPC levels and non-trade and go hammer and tongs on trade levels. We have sufficient headroom in East to kind of get the growth this year, even next year a double-digit growth, and the year after also a double-digit growth. So certainly, suffice to say for the next two and a half years, we have adequate capacity in East to kind of sweat the assets and get the volume growth going. The other one which we will certainly work on is get into more and more blended cement, get into more and more slag cement. Also, Concreto Uno is a composite cement. It's a premium composite. So we will more and more switch over from plain PPC or plain PSC into composite to do clinker release. So clinker release will be an agenda. Going from OPC to blended cement, whatever little we do will be the second agenda. Sufficient headroom to grow. Certainly in Q4 and beyond FY 2027 and 2028 also, we have adequate capacity in the east. North will be a tight scenario. After this quarter, we'll continue to operate at near capacity utilization in north. And that's one of the reasons Vadraj will come into play. Once Vadraj capacity comes into play, we release close to about the current 1 million ton sale in Gujarat into north markets and certainly get Vadraj to serve Gujarat as well as West Maharashtra or also some bordering portion of West MP also will happen from sole factory. So all in all, the entire Vadraj expansion strategy is to release capacity in north and east. We We are self-contained for the next two to three years. Okay, sir, just to add on to that. So if I look at the presentation, the cement to clinker ratio for nine months is mentioned at 1.72x at the company level. Could you break this down into east and north? What would be the CK ratio in those regions separately? Yeah. East will be close to about 1.95 to 2. North will be about 1.3 to 1.35. So we'll have to further improve North by moving away from OPC to PPC. I guess that's going to be the focus in the coming two quarters to realize cement. And because there's growth in the market, we'll have to move away from non-trade into trade and move away from OPC to PPC. We hardly sell any OPC in trade. So whatever little non-trade OPC will move from non-trade based on contribution, of course, into PPC. East certainly at 2. We still have headroom to go to 2.1. In certain markets, we have done 2.1 in the past as well. We should go to 2.1 very soon. So there again, I think we will curtail the OPC sales and non-trade and go out and out into PPC or move from PSC into composite cement. Okay. And in the interim, do we have any scope for any debottlenecking, or we have already sort of exhausted the likely sort of limit? No. As we speak right now, we don't have any debottlenecking plan in east. However, the cement capacity increase of four million tons grinding will help us more grinding capacity closer to the market to get this capacity going in the market. And also the Chhattisgarh GST benefit will help us garner a little bit more money by the debottlenecking in Arasmeta. The entire composite cement agenda, blended cement agenda for the company is the reason for doing the expansion of grinding units in east. Now I'm sticking from a clinker perspective. I was sticking from a clinker perspective. I'm talking about that. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Right. Right. Hold on for a second. I'm coming to that. East, we have debottlenecking. Our installed clinker capacity is close to 9.5 million tons. So we can always get this squeezing down to point. At this point of time, I'm not focused too much on increasing clinker capacity from 9.5 beyond simply because I have headroom. Even with 9.5 at 2.1 CK ratio, I can go more than 20 million tons in east. And I have adequate cement at 2 million, 10% growth for the next three years. I have adequate cement capacity unlocked for east. Maybe same time next year, we can think about debottlenecking. We don't have plans to put a full-fledged clinker line in east at this point of time. But maybe I think as the year progresses and we come into next year, we can look at that. In the north, debottlenecking certainly we will do. We already debottlenecked Nimbol from 4,500 to 6,100. That's a big debottlenecking exercise we did. Chittor factory used to be 5,000 then went to [foreign language]. But right now, I don't have any plans to increase the clinker capacity in the north from 6,250, 6,250, 12,500. Vadraj will be the one which will come and help my clinker capacity in the north. Sure. Thanks. And just one last question from my side. What would be the cost of borrowing for the company as of now? Just a second, So it is currently in the range of around 8%. 8%. Okay. Thanks, sir. Thanks, sir. That's it from my side. Thank you. Participants are requested to restrict their questions to two at a time, please. Next question is from the line of Shravan Shah from Dolat Capital. Please go ahead. Hi. Thank you, sir. Sir, just to summarize, so at a blended level and given the 3 million ton capacity that will come up, particularly this east one, so 1 million ton, I hope will be coming by March, Jojobera and Jajpur. Jojobera and Panagarh will be coming by this March and maybe 1 million ton Jajpur by 1Q FY 2027. And plus 2 million ton Surat also will be coming up and will be available for the second of FY 2027. So at a broader level, this fourth quarter, at least we should be doing 7%-8% growth. And for next two to three years, as you are highlighting at a blended level, closer to a double-digit growth is doable. Absolutely. I guess you say you summarized everything what I wanted to tell. Certainly in Q4, our target should be what you mentioned. And next year and beyond, we are targeting a CAGR of 10% volume growth, at least for the next two years, if not more. Surat will give us, Vadraj will give us the benefit in east. In north and east with the Jojobera debottlenecking, more or less it is going to be ready. I guess in the next two months, we should have Jojobera expansion completed. Jajpur expansion, Panagarh expansion work has started. We have, there is something called NIL approval. So we are working with the governments for getting the no-load increase approval, which is happening currently. And side by side, the modifications are happening in this B Plant. Arasmeta debottlenecking will be a little bit longer because it involves putting up a totally new mill. That should be available in FY 2028. FY 2027, certainly Jojobera expansion will be completed early part of FY 2027. And even Panagarh and Jajpur, I guess we should be ready by max, max Q2, but certainly end of Q1. Okay. Got it. Second, sir, to summarize in terms of the cost of including even the startup cost for the Vadraj. So from here on, in terms of that at a company level, in terms of the cost saving, how one can look at? This is our annual operating plan time. I guess when we meet in 4Q numbers, I'll be able to share the next two to three years' cost saving agenda for the company. We are on the work. We are currently working. So next time when we meet, I will be able to share with you the next two to three years' cost saving agenda for the company. Okay. And sir, CapEx, you have mentioned for the fourth quarter, for FY 2027 and 2028, if you can, because I think there are CapEx slightly getting postponed to FY 2027. So for FY 2027 and 2028, if you can spell the CapEx number. FY 2027, I'm looking at overall CapEx of close to about INR 1,000 crores and FY 2028 close to INR 700 crores. FY 2026 will be INR 650 crores. INR 650 crores to INR 650 crores equals what I mentioned, INR 620-INR 670 crores. Let's take INR 650 crores as FY 2026. FY 2027 should be anywhere between INR 1,000-1,050 crores. FY 2027 will be anywhere between INR 650-INR 700 crores. This will have Vadraj CapEx, which will come. We already spent close to about INR 200 crores in Vadraj by December. We should have another INR 300 crores, INR 250 crores, which will happen in the next two to three months. Then on next year, about INR 800 crores, and the year next, another INR 500 crores for Vadraj. That's the routine CapEx. Overall, summing up, FY 2026, our CapEx will be INR 620-INR 670 crores. You will take INR 50 crores here and there. FY 2027 will be INR 1,000-INR 1,100 crores. FY 2028 will be INR 650-INR 700 crores. So sorry to interrupt. I requested to join back the queue. I'm just completing that. So does that mean that? Go ahead. Yeah. Does that mean that we are not factoring any kind of a CapEx for Chittorgarh expansion? That should be happening in the FY 2028 at least, so. At this point of time, it's too early for me to say when we will start. Either we'll start in FY 2028 or FY 2029. It could be give or take one year here and there. But I think let's get into FY 2027, H2 of FY 2027. We will have given you clarity on when do we start. Because we got still, like Vishnu mentioned in his opening remarks, we have options with Gulbarga. We have options with Chittorgarh. We have the Nimbahera mine. We also have the JMK mine in Jodhpur and also have the Gulbarga mine. So we will decide closer to the date where we will expand, either a greenfield expansion or a brownfield expansion. FY 2028 onwards it will start. But it's too early for me to say when I'm going to put money. It could be H2 of FY 2028 or Q1 of FY 2029. Okay. Okay. Got it, sir. Thank you. Thank you. We'll take our next question from the line of Navin Sahadeo from ICICI Securities. Please go ahead. Yeah. Good evening and thank you for the opportunity. Hello. Am I audible? Yeah. Yes. Please go ahead. Okay. Great. Yeah. Great. Thank you. So two questions. One was on the industry-wide pricing. So as you said, you've taken some price hikes in January. And you also mentioned that December as a month, not just, I mean, it witnessed a double-digit kind of a growth. And I think our channel checks are also indicating both north and east. We We witnessed a very decent, or may I say very bumper sort of a rebound volumes in the month of December. Typically, January volumes are at par to what they are in December. So my question was that if December as a month, which witnessed such a sharp recovery, could not give any prices, rather prices continued to reel under pressure, what gives the confidence that January would see some better pricing, please? Volume, certainly from the first 14 days of the month, I guess we are tracking decent volumes. I'm sure industry also is demand for cement in general is pretty good in the market as January has started. So I'm not going to qualify any, put any adjective to the past month. But certainly, I think December was a good month for us and maybe for industry once their results are published. But certainly in January, I see a demand sustaining from December 20 levels, December 20th to 30th levels. And that's the reason why we have gone ahead and made these changes in pricing. So as I said earlier, this is just only what, one week into price increase time. So I will wait and watch going forward whether we are able to sustain these prices. So my gut sense is the prices had fallen below the GST levels because we had passed on all the benefits of GST and we continued with the quarter. But with a little bit of a cost inflation, we had to do some adjustment and that's how we took this correction. Non-trade prices had gone quite below trade prices and that's the reason why we took the correction in non-trade first. Understood. Helpful. Second, there's slightly long-term or a mid-term question. This is in with respect to the CapEx plans that you have mentioned. So historically, you always mentioned that whenever the net debt of the company comes to in the range of INR 3,500-INR 4,000, you will pursue the next CapEx, which you are doing in the form of Vadraj. So now, since the last two quarters, you've been mentioning medium-term growth plans of Chittorgarh plant and a greenfield optionality for Gulbarga. So is there any thought process as to when, at what levels of debt will the company then again, net debt or the net debt to EBITDA, will the company look to pursue these CapEx? I still continue to say that we will pursue our growth at this kind of numbers in future as well. But with this kind of CapEx spend in the last year with Vadraj acquisition and going forward in the next two years, certainly we need to have the next set of expansion. Moment we complete Vadraj. But the current focus is going to be getting Vadraj right. So we are a company which goes 100 times company. So that's how we will progress on this. When we reach FY 2028, I guess as I answered the previous question, sometime in FY 2028, either H2 or Q1, FY 2029 is when we will start the next phase of expansion. But as I build the business plan for the company from current year to the next two to three years, we should be in a pretty favorable position at similar kind of debt levels two years from now for us to kickstart the next expansion. Noted. One question, if I can speak then. Sorry. So very quickly, your freight cost tends to be very volatile. I mean, it's heartening to see a decline, but then it also tends to bounce back. For example, in Q4 of 2025, it had fallen on a quarter which is as low as 1,401. But suddenly in Q1, we saw a jump to 1,550. So I'm just trying to understand. It's good to see the current quarter's outstanding reduction in the freight. But how sustainable is this? This is my only limited question. Thank you. To keep the freight cost under control, I think there are two, three levers which we have done. Certainly, I think the railway siding in Sonadih and Jajpur has been instrumental in reducing the clinker movement freight, which is important. The second one is with the starting of our Bhiwani factory, the lead distance of Haryana cement plants got positively impacted. As regards to your question about erratic behavior of our freight cost, so I would say that certainly from FY 2025, Q2 onwards till as we speak, I think gradually we are chipping away the freight cost, mainly due to three reasons. One is focusing on home markets and reducing the lead distance. Second one is what do you call the railway siding in Sonadih as well as Jajpur. But one of the principal reasons is we are a company which is on 37% rail share and 63% road share. As you would have seen, post-COVID for the next two years, the government did not levy the what do you call freight subsidy for lean season. They delivered freight subsidy for lean season and suddenly they went back again two years, year and a half, last year, I guess. This FY 2026 and FY 2025, the freight subsidy got canceled. Hence, the freight cost increased because we have a big amount of rail share and the overall freight cost increased due to subsidy going away. From now on, from last year, which is FY 2025 to FY 2026, I guess it's a steady state period. You will see us progressing continuously on sustained reduction in freight cost, mainly through home market sales, increased home market sales, reducing leakages through GPS, getting the clinker distribution cost between Jajpur and Sonadih. And last but not the least, one of the things which also came as a what do you call a fluctuation in for two, three for two quarters was also in certain markets, we moved from Ex to FOR. But then I think the entire industry works on a particular practice and then we had to change the model. And that's the reason where you would have seen some spikes on the freight cost. All that is behind us now. We now have a steady state market with sustained railway. With all the costs which are built going forward, contains the what do you call lean season discount not happening during the period. Number two being Sonadih, Jajpur siding is completed. Number three being increased focus on home markets in Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, where the distribution cost should come Haryana. Distribution cost should come down. So, suffice to say, as we go forward, we should be able to have efficiency improvement in logistics cost to get the maximum savings in the coming quarters. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll take that as the last question for today. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Bishnu Sharma for closing comments. Over to you, sir. Thank you for all your thoughtful and insightful questions. We hope your questions have been addressed. The investor relations team is ready to provide any additional clarifications you might need post the call. Before we wrap up today's call, let me affirm our resolute commitment to driving sustained growth and strengthening our market positions. Vadraj Cement plant project execution remains on track with phased commissioning targeted from Q3 FY 2027 to strengthen our western region presence. Our eastern expansion fueled by strong demand for blended cement under Concreto and Duraguard will further enhance our leadership position in that region. Looking ahead, we will continue to drive premiumization in areas where we have consistently expanded our base and set new benchmarks while maintaining our focus on geographical optimization and cost reduction to enhance profitability and create sustained shareholder value. Thank you for being with us today. Thank you. Thank you. On behalf of Nuvoco Vistas Corporation Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us and you may now disconnect your line.