Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to Shree Cement fourth quarter FY 2023 and FY 2023 earnings call hosted by ICICI Securities. 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. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Navin Sahadeo from ICICI Securities. Thank you. Over to you, sir. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. On behalf of ICICI Securities, I welcome you all to the fourth quarter FY 2023 earnings call of Shree Cement Limited. From the management, we have with us Managing Director, Shree Neeraj Akhoury, and CFO, Shree Subhash Jajoo. Without any further ado, I hand over the call to Akhoury for his opening comments. Over to you, sir. Thank you. Thank you, Navin. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I welcome you to the earnings call of Shree Cement Limited for the quarter ending March 2023. Navin, I hope I am very clear and audible, right? Absolutely clear, sir. Go ahead. 2022, 2023 was an exciting year for Mangalam Cement and Shree Cement. On one hand, we were able to record about 15%, which is rather healthy volume growth, we also started a new journey remaining the greenest cement company in India. We are currently very happy to say that we are currently at about 55% of green power share in our process, which to my mind is highest not only in India but also in the globe. We are also making significant investments in the plant with advanced technologies to improve our fuel flexibility, including ability to reach higher numbers on alternate fuel. At the same time, we're also testing new logistics models now, including the testing of EV vehicles. At the same time, at Shree we are executing systematic interventions to explore full potential of our company, covering a range of subjects like commissioning of advanced digital solutions or upgrading our IT platforms, enhancing our manufacturing excellence, building our logistics capabilities, as well as working on route to market with enhanced product offerings. As you know, now we have redesigned our organization, and we have a very strong marketing team which is separate from sales, as well as commissioned a technical services team, which will allow us to bring products with sharper value propositions in the market and possibly impact not only the volume but also the price performance. We have recently launched a internal campaign which we call We Lead, and this campaign is to make sure that Shree remains the leader in manufacturing and logistics performance. This program is performing well, and we expect that it should start giving results in the coming quarters. We have started recovering our performance in fourth quarter 2023 with softening of fuel prices, also due to start of execution phase of several plant initiatives to mitigate the headwind of costs. To focus on the quarterly performance, the company was able to achieve a margin improvement of 2% while driving the sales volume growth by almost about 9% up to 9 million tons in the quarter, as against 8 million tons in the same quarter last year, which is equal to about 10% growth. The capacity utilization has also increased strongly from 71% last year to 78% this year. This is largely because of very healthy demand shoots that we are observing across the country led by infrastructure, housing segment, both rural and urban, as well as the commercial real estate. The realization increased by 2%, has resulted also in the EBITDA, which is down by about 2% at INR 892 crores against INR 911 crores in March 2022. EBITDA per tonne has stood at INR 1,011 rupees against INR 1,134 last year. On sequential basis, volumes were up by, as I said, by about 10%. Realization has remained flat during the quarter. However, absolute EBITDA increased from INR 708 crores in December 2022 to INR 892 crores, led by operational efficiencies and volume gains. EBITDA per ton sequentially has increased from INR 881 per ton to INR 1,011 per ton. For full year, our sales volumes increased from 27.7 million tons in 2021 to 2022 to a level of 31.8 million tons in 2023. The capacity utilization for the year was at 70% as compared to 64% in the preceding year. Realization was up by about 3% despite increase in sales and sales realization. EBITDA, excluding other income, decreased from INR 3,648 to 2,942 crores, which is about roughly about 19%, largely because of a significant and unprecedented increase in fuel costs, but also in most of the other costs like fly ash as well as slag. The impact was mitigated to some extent due to higher consumption of alternate fuel and import of fuel from newer markets. Prices of fly ash, as I said, and slag also increased significantly during the year. With fuel prices declining since third quarter of 2023, combined with execution for our performance programs, profitability has started moving up thereafter. The company continues its focus on sustainability initiatives. As I said, the share of green power consumption in total power during the quarter stood at 55% against 50% in the corresponding quarter of the previous year. We have completed commissioning of 122 MW of solar and wind power plants in different states during the year. As a result, our total green power generation capacity has increased to 386 MW at the close of 2023. Another 93 MW of green power capacity would be added this year and next year. The company remains committed to continuously increase its share of green power. We are also stepping up our efforts to increase use of agricultural, industrial, municipal waste to improve our thermal substitution rate. The company has invested in state-of-the-art facilities for handling and feeding such waste materials, which will help significantly in enhancing our AFR performance. We are very happy to state that we have fully stopped using coal or petcoke and fossil fuel in any one of our grinding units. We are able to achieve TSR of 4.35% last quarter. We expect it to increase to close about 15% by the end of this year. I'm also very happy to share with all of you that under the National Mission for Enhanced Energy Efficiency, Shree Cement has been recognized as top performer dedicated consumer in cement sector for achieving maximum energy savings under PAT Cycle II. As a result of multiple initiatives taken to bring down its carbon footprints, the company has been able to reduce its carbon emission by 3% to 513 kg of CO2 per ton of cement equivalent in 2023. On the marketing side, I know there are many things on marketing side, the company is continuing with its efforts towards fulfilling various needs of its customers through premium offerings and better customer servicing. A new vertical of technical services has been created to support our sales team. The team has well-defined KPIs of visiting the construction sites and educating customers during our products and its applications. We've initiated the process of strengthening our brand equity by engaging with experts who have advised us for our future strategy. Due to these efforts, we were able to increase the share of our premium product sale against total cement sales, trade sales from 6.6% in March quarter to over 77.5% in the last quarter 2023. We're also working on various initiatives of digitalization front. Very shortly, we would go live with our customer relationship management, CRM software, which helps in real-time integration of dealers, retailers, institutional influencers, and the company. This would support field sales force with live relevant customer feedback. Logistics control tower system and transport app is also in the process to set up on to enable management of logistics cycle from order to pay. End-to-end shipment visibility is now a reality for Shree Cement through our GPS activity in almost all trucks. We are also migrating from Oracle to SAP S/4HANA-based ERP to adopt more advanced and simplified workflow and processes. In manufacturing operations, we have implemented a plant data management system, which is called PDMS, to capture data from IoT sensors and generate automated KPI reports and alerts to bring overall efficiency in the operation. We are also digitizing our HR operations by implementing state-of-art tool called Darwinbox. On the expansion front, we're very happy to say that we are achieving, we are working now very strongly to achieve our goal to reach beyond 80 million ton capacity in the coming years. The 3 million ton East India Korba grinding unit will be commissioned very shortly, in fact, by 1 June 2023. Work on 3.5 million ton project at Nawalgarh grinding unit is also on, should be commissioned by quarter three, quarter four of this year. Our Andhra project, Guntur project is also progressing well and should be commissioned early next year. On the demand front, actually we expect demand to maintain its healthy momentum in FY 2023 to 2024. The demand growth is expected to be majorly led by government's strong infra spending before the Lok Sabha elections in 2024. Infrastructure segment as a result of 24% enhanced outlay in budget spending with central government's key infra projects shall be the main demand driver. New projects and capacity expansion plans announced by the players in capital-intensive sector, such as steel and start of work in PLI led project data centers are likely to also contribute to increasing demand in both industrial and commercial segments. Demand from housing segment should also remain strong on expectation of normal monsoons, with continuation of healthy prices for farm produce and government thrust through schemes like Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana. Industry margins are expected to improve in this year because of softening of the fuel prices, as well as declining of the crude oil prices. All in all, in my view, FY 2024 is expected to be a favorable year for the steel industry. With this, I will now open the floor for the Q&A. Thank you very much, everybody. 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 touchtone 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. First question is from the line of Sumangal Nevatia from Kotak Securities. Please go ahead. Yeah, good morning, and thank you for the opportunity. The first question is on the fuel cost. If you could just share some detail as to what was the cost in fourth quarter and how do we see coal, pet coke procurement and consumption happening over the next two quarters? Good morning, Sumangal. This is Subhash Jajoo here. The fuel cost, though the current fuel cost has come down, the export prices have come down significantly, but because of the large inventory which we were carrying, the impact of the same is not right now visible in our last quarter results. In fact, in March 2023, the per tonne cost of fuel was same as compared to what it was in December, around INR 2.53. However, the current prices of pet coke has come down to almost INR 1.80. The benefit of the same will be visible in the coming one or two quarters. Most probably for the June quarter you will see the fuel cost declining to around INR 2.35 to 2.40. Over next quarter again it is going to come down. On a full year basis our cost was INR 2.62 in 2022 to 2023 as compared to INR 1.69 in 2021 to 2022. Understood. Jajoo, on, in the mix, if you could just share, I mean, is it fully pet coke or also you're using thermal coke? Yes. In March quarter we have used almost 76% pet coke and remaining was the other coal and alternative fuels as compared to 50% used in the last year. Got it. As pet coke prices, last year pet coke was a fuel. At one point of time fuel prices, coal imported thermal coal prices were cheaper as compared to pet coke. Now gradually in last three, four months, pet coke has come down cheaper. We are continuously increasing the use of pet coke. Got it. Recently on a tonne basis, pet coke is around INR 1.80, whereas thermal coal is around INR 2. Okay. Noted, sir. Thank you. Sir, my second question is more with respect to strategy, on our inorganic growth ambitions. In the past decade we've seen that we've hardly participated in any M&A, and we've clearly preferred to build over by giving a superior project execution capability. We now read our, us evaluating with various opportunities in the market. Is there any change in thought process, approach or strategy over the next 10 years? I mean, the way we want to grow our business towards 80 and 100 million tons over the next five, 10 years. You know, when we are growing, of course on organic route, we have enough plans to reach beyond 80 million tons. As far as inorganic is concerned it depends on the strategic fit, but also on the value creation potential of the target. Based on that we take some decisions. I don't think JSW has ever been, even today I would like to re-emphasize that JSW is very open to such opportunities. The opportunity should add value to us, at the same time should be part of the strategic fit in terms of the growth model, in terms of market, in terms of several other things. We are not against acquisition as has been said by some people even today morning, that they're saying information. We are very open to it, but it should be positive for our business as well. Thank you. Mr. Nevatia, may I request you to join back the queue for any follow-up as there are several participants waiting for their turn. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Before we take the next question, I'd like to remind our participants to limit your questions to two per participant. If time permits you may join the queue for any follow-up. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Prateek Kumar from Jefferies. Please go ahead. Yeah. Good morning, sir. My first question is on your premiumization of your product mix. Where are we in, I mean, by the way you highlighted in your opening remarks, where are we in our efforts for taking up this premium product mix? Where should it end, maybe by FY 2024 end, how much it can contribute to your incremental realization on a per ton basis? You know, last year same quarter I think we were roughly about 6% to 6.5% of premium products. Last quarter of this year we have been able to increase it to something like 7% to 7.5%. 7.5% to be precise. The journey has started where we are bringing up some new products. Just about two days back, or three days back, we launched a new product in our coastal markets of Odisha by the brand name of Rockstrong. We are also working with our R&D as well as manufacturing to come up with some enhanced products which have sharper value proposition. With the current brands that we have in the market, we expect to grow up to about 15% of sales, the 15% of the share in premium segment, by end of this year. As I said, the journey has started. We are building the brand equity. We are making strong corrections in our brand architecture. This will all help us to communicate the value that we bring to the customers in a stronger way. My first-year ambition is to reach about 15%, and thereafter we will chart the ways of how to grow it further. As far as what does it bring, I think my view would be, and I make this comment at the current level of pricing, that each ton of this 15% will give us about INR 50 per ton advantage in our EBITDA. Is it a strategy or the product mix of pricing or premium pricing? Is it different across regions or we have like a similarly, similar mix of premium product across the four regions we operate in? See, in mind you, cement is a very local product. Yeah. Each market, each district needs to have its own unique strategy of products and product positioning. This is exactly what we are doing. Each market has its own needs. For example, when I just now mentioned about coastal Odisha. Coastal Odisha is known for its weather and is known for its somewhat, sometimes very harsh weather. This has a specific kind, type of, concrete to, for our, to have durable structures, and that's what our focus has been. Similarly, if you go for a coastal market, because of sea, there are separate challenges. As I said, each district will have its own approach. We will be able to, we are defining it district by district. Overall, I see a space for two to four premium brands in the market, as we move forward. Thank you. One other question is on what was the loss of volumes due to the IT incident that happened over the last week of the quarter? Was that volume recovered in first quarter 2024? No, there was no volume impact because of the IT incident. We have a very strong business continuity process in the company. The moment it was reported that there is an IT incident, very quickly the BCP process took over, and therefore there has not been any impact because of this on business performance. Thank you, Mr. Kumar. You can stay joined on the queue for any follow-ups. The next question is from the line of Shyam Sundar Sriram from Franklin Templeton. Please go ahead. Yeah. Hi sir. Good morning. Thanks for the opportunity. Hope I'm audible. Yes, you're audible. Please go ahead. Yeah. Yeah. We are seeing utilizations improving over the last few quarters. From a two-year perspective, can you please highlight the pecking order of strategic priorities, such as, say, market share gains, product mix improvement, EBITDA improvement? What would be your pecking order of strategic priorities? Would be great to hear that. Just adding to that, we are also seeing the cost curve shifting down, led by fossil fuel prices, just like Jajoo just highlighted in the prior question. Will we look to share some of that surplus to deepen our market presence, or will we retain that within the company to improve the profitability? Let me try to understand the question first. First is the strategic priorities. We have a very. The pecking order, sir. More importantly, your pecking order, how you think of it. As a CEO, I'm supposed to think of all the ones in the same pecking order. You know, it is not that one is better than other. Let me see if I can answer a part of it. First thing is first that, as we said, that we, Shree Cement, is very clear on our objective to become the biggest cement company in the country. This is a top priority for us. It is good for environment, good for business. Therefore, it is something that we would like to pursue very, as strongly as we have been pursuing in the last few years. The second priority is to make sure that from the current operations, we are able to extract more value for our shareholders. This will come in two parts. One is, by having a better look at the offerings that we are making in the market, our product offerings, and how can we price them better. In some cases, what can we do in terms of meeting the exact and precise customer expectations? This is something that we are doing, and we believe this is a journey by itself. It takes some while before we reach there. As we have mentioned to you that we have recently partnered with McCann, one of the world's very known advertising agency to make sure that our brand stories are told well in the market. This is the second, this is other priority that we have. Not second, but other priority. Third is to make sure that Shree is able to maintain its momentum of capacity growth. We are known for this in last several years. This is something that we are firmly on ground. We have a very strong team that is pursuing this. We believe that in the coming years, we should be reaching 80 million tons through our organic efforts in different parts of the country, by which by the way will truly make us an India company. These are the three big topics for us. The fourth topic that is going to be the platform on which we will construct all these initiatives is what I call a very modern organization. An organization with advanced IT tools like SAP S/4HANA and an organization with advanced digital tools, one we are doing in CRM or logistics or in the manufacturing. That is the way we are setting up our objectives for strategic objectives for the coming year. This what I am saying is also applicable to other support functions, and they are all working around these priorities to make sure that as a company we succeed in the coming years. Understood, sir. That was clear. The other point I was trying to understand, is given the cost curve shifting down, will we look to share some of that surplus to deepen our market presence, or will we try to retain that within the company as we also have growth ambitions going forward? I don't think we are going to play a role by which we destroy our price line in order to reach a volume target. Our objective strategy is very clear. We have to reach our business and volume, you know, reach a volume level by which our utilization level is at least that of average industry. That is number one. While doing so, we are extremely conscious that our role is to make sure that the price line does not get does get eroded. We are able to, in fact, stimulate by pushing more premium products. That's the strategy that we are going to play. Understood, sir. Understood. Thank you very much, sir. One last question, if I may ask. Is there a aspirational EBITDA per ton that we would like to reach in the medium term, for Shree Cement, sir? We have been kind of leaders in EBITDA per ton in the industry. If you look at the gray cement, I think, I refuse to believe that even today we should not be in any way a company which is giving an inferior set of numbers on our core business. With the new capacity additions, with increase in premium products, with making sure that we are able to work on Maripatu and logistics excellence, we believe we should be able to create some additional room for adding to the EBITDA per ton performance in the company, and that is the way we, for us going forward. Yes, sir. Thank you very much. I'll fall back in the queue. Thank you. The next question is from Kunal Khudania from DSP Asset Managers. Please go ahead. Hi. My question is on the debt front, like although you have explained in terms of the capacity expansion. How do you see your debt levels panning out in the near to medium term? Is it that your internal accruals would be sufficient to take care of the CapEx requirement? Yeah. Kunal, currently we have a net cash of around INR 5,700 crore as of March ending. We believe all our, despite our aggressive capital expenditure program, everything will be through internal accruals. We don't foresee to take any further debt in the books. In fact, the cash in the books is sufficient to take care of our needs in the coming few years. Okay. Okay. Understood, sir. That was my question. Thanks. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Amit Marwaha from Axis Capital. Please go ahead. Yeah. Hi, good morning. Thanks for the opportunity. I have two questions. First, on the inorganic optionality that you're exploring. Earlier, I believe the thought that used to be that, you would not look beyond an $80 per ton kind of valuation for an asset. Given that most transactions in the market for integrated plants are happening above $100, has that thought changed or you're still looking at that $80 number? That's the first question. The value of any acquisition target is based on the quality of the asset, quality of the business that we are acquiring. It is not right to give one number for any business. It depends on which market that asset is, where, what are the operational numbers, what are the landfill reserve, for example, and so on, so forth. Yeah. It is not right to give one number for it. Each asset is evaluated based on the specific set of financials that we get. Clearly, the idea would be how to make sure that by acquiring that asset, we are making our business stronger. That is how it will be done. Yeah. Okay. you're not benchmarking yourself to that $80 number or something, I think, which used to be the thought earlier. Of course. Each asset, each opportunity has to be evaluated based on the specifics that it brings on the table. $80 per ton is one number, but it asset quality will largely determine what kind of evaluations we get. Sure, sure. The next question then is on UAE. Like, I see from your cash flow that you've invested another INR 525 crores in UAE. So what was this amount for? Then, like, how much more is planned to be spent with that asset in the coming years? Hello? Yeah. No, we have not done any further investments in UAE. In fact, the other investments which we are seeing is in our other subsidiary companies like Shree Cement East, where we are setting up our Purulia grinding unit. For UAE, we are not doing any expenditure right now. Okay, okay. Yeah. My mistake then. I thought that, in the console, it was showing up, and it was showing up as investment in like subsidiary. That's a UAE. Yes. That's a Purulia investment, not the UAE investment. That figure is for all our subsidiaries. In that expenditure, the main expenditure is for the Purulia grinding unit, which we are setting up in Shree Cement East. Got it. Got it. There's no further investment plan in UAE as of now, right then? No. As of now, no. Certain Certain efficiency improvements, these things go on forever, like, but no major investments as such. Okay. Okay. Could you detail out your CapEx plan for FY 2024? In the current year we'll be spending something close to INR 3,300 to 3,500 crore. Thank you... [inaudible] Got it. Thanks. You may join the queue for follow-up. Sure. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Satyadeep Jain from Ambit Capital. Please go ahead. Hi. Thank you. Just a couple of questions. First one. Satyadeep, can I request you to use the handset sir? You're not very clear. Yes. Hi. Thank you for the opportunity. A couple of questions. First one is on volume and capacity. Tied up a follow-up to Shyam's question in a way. You're indicating that you want to bridge the gap on utilization between Shree Cement and the industry utilization. Given Shree Cement is also adding capacity in the next year, how much growth can we look at for next year? I think earlier in the media interviews and all, if I'm not mistaken, we'd heard of 36 million ton in FY 2024. Does that still hold? In the release you mentioned, beyond 80 million tons versus target of 80 million ton by FY 2030. Beyond 80 million tons would be by FY 2030, or you're looking at even beyond 80 million tons before FY 2030? After these expansions, Once Nawalgarh and all these projects commission, what could be the pecking order for projects, for you, beyond these projects? That's on volume and capacity. Then second one would be on, the branding strategy, I come to that. One last line. I'm sorry. I didn't get it. Last line, please. The second question would be on branding strategy that maybe I'll ask after this question. Volume and capacity. Okay. Okay. Okay. As we said, 80 million ton is a very well-stated objective, which our chairman has already communicated to all of you in the last year as well. For this, a detailed plan site by site is there. We are progressing on each of these sites as a site is at separate stages of development. Somewhere the land acquisition is over. We are going for EC. In some cases EC has been done. In some cases we are progressing with the land acquisition. After Nawalgarh, we expect to have four or five projects. It depends on the date by which we get the clearance from the government as well as other regulatory authorities. As and when we get the clearance, we will be starting those projects and you will hear it from us every time when we start a project. Yeah. We have sufficient locations and sufficient arguments to go from current where we are to 80 million tons with this mix of brownfield and greenfield expansion projects. Okay. On the volume growth, sir, for this year, for FY 2024. On the volume growth, as we said, we should be reaching about 36 odd million tons is what we had kept, which is, which means a growth of about 13%, for us, yeah, which is slightly ahead of the market estimate, the market growth that we are expecting in the range of 7% to 8%. We're slightly ahead of that, growth largely because we are adding new capacities this year. Okay. Thank you. Second question is on the branding strategy. You touched upon premium products in Rockstrong, premium product in Odisha. When you look at the northern region and the normal category A products also in addition to... [inaudible] is there some thought on the strategy specifically on the northern region? How would you look at improving the utilization there? Is it largely going to be introduction of new premium products or or maybe brand repositioning or introduction of new products and category, A specifically? In that category, premium products has also been, a lot of players are chasing that market. How has the initial reception been in that premium category? Are you seeing a lot of competition in that particular market? That, that's some branding and north and overall the premium depth and positioning You know, in my view, and in our view, there is a segment of customers who are looking for products with sharper value proposition, be it in source, be it in cars or be it in cement. That's a customer group that we have identified. We have studied their requirements, their needs, both stated and non-stated. Therefore, the products that are being designed to be used in North India, are in two stages. One, we have two existing premium category brands in the market, Rupal and Bangur Power. Both of them today are in north position in line with the A group pricing. Beyond this, we are looking at what else we can do to certainly communicate this big message with a product that has more sharper value proposition. When I say value proposition, you might think we can talk in terms of cement that are designed for, especially for high performance areas. For example, M-30, M-40, M-50 grades of concrete. These are the kind of products that we are now launching, and hopefully we should see that one brand, at least in North India, will be launched in this year in addition to Bangur Power and Rupal. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Raashi Chopra from Citigroup. Please go ahead. Thank you. To understand this better, the on a sequential basis, your realization for flattish, the power costs were flattish. The change that we are seeing, I mean, how do you kind of allocate that between the remaining costs as well as the sale of power? Yes, Raashi, you are correct. The realizations were more or less flat. There was very marginal increase if you look, compare it from the December numbers. Yet fuel cost also did not move up. In fact, December quarter, the fuel cost was around 2.53 on a per CV basis, and it remains the same more or less in this quarter. That is particularly because of some high cost inventory which we are carrying. We believe the fuel cost benefit will come, some part of it is going to come in this quarter. You should see some moderation in fuel cost to around INR 2.35 in the coming in the current quarter. Okay. Okay. On the cement realization, post the quarter, have there been any significant changes or realization the kind of flattish? No. In fact, you are talking about December and March? Current post the quarter. [crosstalk]... No, the realizations have slightly come down, I would say, as compared to last quarter. Okay. Just last two bookkeeping questions. What was lead distance and in terms of trade sales in the quarter? Trade sale was around 80%. Lead distance? Lead distance was 463 kilometers as compared to 473 last year. Okay. 450 kilometers in December quarter. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Rajesh Ravi from HDFC Securities. Please go ahead. Yeah. Hi, sir. Good morning, and my questions pertain to, first pertains to the Union Cement of performance. Could you share what was the volume numbers and profitability for that unit in FY 2023, and what is the outlook? Can you just repeat the question once again? Sir, the Union Cement, how is that unit performed in FY 2023, and what is the outlook volume and margin? No, unfortunately we'll not be able to share details of any of our subsidiary individually. Well, we can only give an outlook, the performance. The last year the performance was not very good, the primary reason was because the main export market, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh have just collapsed over there. Collapsed. Even the domestic prices were not that good last year, and that is why the performance was not up to mark. We expect some recovery in the current year. Okay, great. Given that now Purulia will be set up under the subsidiary structure, the standalone number would appear slightly distorted. Can we have the consolidated numbers for cement volumes for FY 2023 and 2022? No. That may be from next year onwards we will think about, but right now I will not be able to share the details individually of the... [crosstalk] Mm-hmm. Purulia. Okay. Purulia will only start functioning from, current quarter. Correct. Correct. Clinker, how much was the production numbers for FY 2023? Full year. What? Clinker production in FY 2023 full year standalone. Okay. Yes. That I will just share. Just one second, please. Clinker was 120.2 million. It's around 20.2 million. Sir, just, you know, just because of the external power sales, the sequential numbers because you're not reporting it separately, the realization numbers appear volatile. You know, is there a way to mention that in the press release so that, you know this... because it distorts both the top line, realization as well as the energy cost numbers. I got your point, right now our policy is such that we will not be able to share the power details. Maybe from... we'll think about it and maybe from next quarter we will find out a way how to give you. Sure. At least cement number when you mention at least, you know, which is area of analysis, so that will help us. Yes. Last question on the total CapEx. What is the on the ongoing projects, you know, how much is pending in terms of which you will be spending? You mentioned that INR 3,300 to 3,400 crore on ongoing projects in FY 2024. What would be balance amount that would be left for FY 2025? Primarily toward Guntur. Yes. As we told you, like, we have already spent around INR 3,300 crore last year. Current year, we should also expect similar sort of spending. This includes the amount for Guntur, Nawalgarh. Purulia is now more or less complete, so there is no major amount left. This INR 3,300 crore also includes some of the new projects which we'll be announcing in the coming quarters. Thank you, Mr. Ravi. May I request you to join the queue for any follow-up as we have several participants waiting for their turn. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Nitin Arora from Axis Mutual Fund. Please go ahead. My question was similar to the previous participant, Jajuji. The thing is, if you can help us quantify the profitability per tonne of cement, because when this 1,000 is not a representable number, is it possible to state that in the cement, what was the EBITDA per tonne? Looks like power a decent number in this quarter. No. As per the currently we will not be able to share because we are not allowed to share our power numbers separately. Yes, I appreciate your point. Maybe from next time onwards we'll find a way how to clarify it. Yeah. Okay. Second thing with respect to, sorry for asking you a short-term question. The improvement in the fuel cost, what you talked about, we'll see it from the next quarter, and I'm assuming this number is not correct in terms of cement EBITDA per ton, which you reported in this quarter. Can you help us at least in the direction what the benefit you are looking? Is it like INR 30, INR 40 per ton, or is it like INR 100, INR 150 per ton from the fuel cost angle? Because I don't have a base number to see the improvement. If you can answer that's my only question. It will be too early to guess that number, how much that power cost will be. In terms of calorie value, it will come down to around INR 2.35 from the existing INR 2.50. Got it. Okay. This is helpful. Got it. Thank you so much. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Pulkit Patni from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. Thank you for taking my question. First is in continuation with Nitin's question. I mean, historically, we've always seen that we've carried low inventory, so changes in fuel price typically has come to us the fastest, whether it is on the way up or way down. This time around, we see that you've built a bigger inventory. Any reason for why this change in strategy? Yes. The reason for carrying fee, always whenever you are thinking about stocking a commodity, you have to take a view on the future prices. Now, looking at the volatility in coal prices, which was, say, around a year back, which was quoting at around $300, now come down to almost $200, $175, we thought probably this was a good level and it should not go down below. Now currently the prices are almost at the last shipment, which we bought was at around $115, $120 per ton. The way the prices are coming down, so we thought that probably, it has come down a lot and that is why we have built in a higher inventory. It's a matter of time before that higher cost inventory goes down, and again we will see the average rate of fuel coming down to these levels. No. Fair, fair point. I completely understand. Second question is for Neeraj. Neeraj, Shree is already one of the most efficient in terms of the cost structures. You spoke about premiumization as one of the ways to take profitability up. Any other way, any sort of cost angle where you think there is more scope to improve efficiency or improve profitability that you can talk about? Or our focus should primarily be on premiumization or brand upgrade, whichever way you look at it. As, as you know, the way I would see it, as any other company, there are one way that we will operate on various levers. Any, and I am very confident about it that any organization has several arguments to improve our performance, whichever level you are at. So be that manufacturing, be that logistics, be that sales and marketing, there are areas where we would, we do believe that there is further scope of improving our performance. As I said, while we have reached a very high number of 55% of solar power, still we are evaluating where else we can put these capacities of solar power that will help us reduce our power cost. Yeah. Similarly, there are many other areas within manufacturing, within logistics, where we find that there is a scope to improve performance, and that's what we are working on. It's not only premiumization. Premiumization is just one part of the journey. There are, other levers on which also we are working simultaneously. I hope, given the fact that there are improvement opportunities, no low-hanging fruits, but improvement opportunities, we should see some results happening in the coming quarters. Sure. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Kamlesh Bagmar from Lotus Asset Managers. Please go ahead. just one on the, on the volume guidance, which we are targeting around 36 odd million tons. It's around a utilization of 78% odd. given the fact that barring, like, say, 3 million ton grinding unit at Pune, we have not commissioned much of the capacity. that suggests that our capacities are underutilized, and it has been there for the last two odd years. Why not at that great utilization numbers on the capacity while our peers like UltraTech, the way they are pushing volumes and at, not at the cost of the margins, lower margins. They are doing phenomenal work. Why we are lagging on that part, despite the fact that Shree has been the pioneer in terms of pushing volumes? No, I'm sure, I'm sure, and this is exactly what I was saying, that some of the things that Shree has been known for and for which Shree's reputation was built is, and one of them was building capacities more than the industry growth. That is something that Shree has done very well. Then has, and therefore has been able to, multifold improve our capacities in the last, several years. Yeah. Sure. Having said that, 12% to 13% growth of volumes in a year is by no means low. It's a very high number, given the fact that industry growth in the same period is around 8%, 7% to 8%. It's not a less ambitious target. It's a very ambitious target, I would say. Yeah. We will, and as I said, our challenge would be to push these volumes by about 13% but also make sure that we reach our stated objectives of 15% of premium products. It's going to be a lot of hard work now from, for us, from now till year-end to make sure that we are able to reach such ambitions. Secondly, like, I know you have given the clarification on the part of not telling about the individual numbers or separate numbers for the power business. Like, at least we can give some trend like how we have performed as compared with the peers. Like, internally we would be doing some analysis on that part because there has been so much of volatility in the power in a quarter. We went down to, like, say, INR 50 crore EBITDA loss on that, and then we moved to INR 100 crore profit on that. At least, like, say, how much we have seen on the actual or the pure EBITDA business in the finance. We appreciate your point, please. We obviously internally, we have all the numbers, you also please try to understand that power constitutes, if you look at it from an overall perspective, power constitutes hardly 3% or 4% of our total revenue. It is not that material. That is why the Board decided that this earlier we used to give power data separately, looking at the overall things and the materiality, which is hardly 3%, 4%, the Board decided that henceforth we should discontinue giving power separately to be treated as a segment. That is why it is not possible to share the numbers. We really appreciate your concern, and maybe we'll try from try to. From next quarter, we'll internally discuss and then try to see how we can sort this out. Thank you. Mr. Bagmar, we request you to join the fourth quarter follow-up. The next question is from the line of Navin Sahadeo from ICICI Securities. Please go ahead. Right. Thank you for this. just one question from my side because as you said in Odisha we launched a premium product. Also, we get from the market feedback is that in north per se we are looking at, launching or recently launched an OPC 53 grade, kind of a high strength, high quality, kind of a product. With various, with focus of on premiumization, wherein the product itself is not a push product, it's a pull product which also has a higher cost To it. Same time, the influencers or the channel partners have to be slightly rewarded more to recommend that product. In general, the cost is a little high. Against that, we also have a volume target which is much superior than the industry. How does this trade-off works? How do you think this trade-off will be in favor of the driving cost and also the volumes that we are looking at from a margin perspective? Thanks. The way I look at it, the market is, in India is clearly not one market. We have at least three types of market. One market is what we call the, in automobile terms, a Mercedes S-Class market. We also have an E-class market and a C-class market. We also have something in India, which is a very important segment now growing very fast and a very big segment, which is the B2B business, the non-trade segment of the business. Right? For each of these segments, we have a specific, we have a specific market size. What our attempt is that Shree should be present in just not one market segment, but multiple market segments, so we can take, or we can participate in each of those market sizes. Right? It is not like pushing premium means that you will not be able to achieve overall volume growth because premium the products are going into a totally, entirely different segment. That segment, if I don't serve, somebody else will serve that segment, right? It is not it is not true to believe that if you are having a premium segment, then overall volumes will be constrained. In fact, in my view, a multi-segmented approach to market will only add to our capacity of further achieving volume numbers. This is how I see it. Appreciate it. Great. Thank you. Next question is from Shouvik Chakraborty from Dolat Capital. Please go ahead. Hello. Shouvik, your line is unmuted. Please proceed with the question. Yeah. Hello. Thank you for the opportunity, sir. Sir, I just wanted to know, can you share the cement realization for this quarter and also for the Y-o-Y and the last quarter also? Yes. Realization for the current quarter is around INR 4,850. It is similar to what it was December. In March last year, it was around INR 4,743. For full year, the realization will be, for the current year, it is around INR 4,872 as compared to INR 4,732 last year. Okay. Okay. Got it, sir. Thank you. That was my question. Thank you. Next question is a follow-up question from the line of Sumangal Nevatia from Kotak Securities. Please go ahead. Sir, my questions are answered. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from Amit Marwaha from Axis Capital. Follow-up question. Please go ahead. Yeah, thanks for the opportunity again. I just wanted to check what is the region-wise capacity utilization in fourth quarter and FY 2023. The capacity utilization in fourth quarter was around, 78% as compared to 71% in March 2022. It was 72% in the December quarter. For full year, last year it was 64%. For, full year 2023, fiscal year 2023, it is around 70%. Region-wise... [crosstalk] Constantly increasing the capacity utilization. Okay. Okay. No, I was just checking for, like, if you could give it region-wise, let's say for North and East, and South. Like, I think you used to share it earlier. For, separately, North is, we are operating at around 80%. East, we are operating at around 82%. South, as the new unit, the Pune unit has come up, so the utilization is slightly down at around 65%. Okay. Okay. Understood. On the TSR expansion to 15% target, like, does it also involve some CapEx and setting up some units at the plants? Yes. Actually, this is exactly what I said, that we are setting up quite state-of-art facilities in our plant for feeding AFR, which is a major challenge in our industry, of how do you feed in the consignor or the bin AFR which has different moisture levels, different chemistry, be it in cultural AFR or be it in the municipal AFR, be it in industrial AFR, right? That's why we are setting up this feeding system so that we are able to feed to the extent that our process mastery can take in the cement plant. There will be a CapEx involved, which was started last year itself to create those facilities. Mr. Jay will be able to give the CapEx numbers. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that would be our last question for today. I would now hand the conference over to Mr. Navin Sahadeo for closing comments. Thank you and over to you. Thank you. On behalf of ICICI Securities, I once again thank the management and all the participants on the call. Akhoury sir, if you have any closing comments, please, we'll take that and we'll conclude the call then after. Thank you so much. Naveen, again, from, on behalf of the management of Shree and everybody present today in the call, we would like to really thank all our investors, all our shareholder groups that, who have come here today. It is encouraging when you all ask questions, when you ask some deep-probing questions. It is frustrating when we are not able to answer many of those questions. We will come back next time more prepared, better prepared. Overall, Shree is on the right path, right direction. Our assurance to all of you that, the performance that Shree is known for will be continued. The team that Shree is known for will continue. The deliverable for which Shree is known for will continue. We will become; we will reach those targets that we spoke about. Thank you very much, everybody, for participating today. Thank you very much. Thank you, Navin. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of ICICI Securities, that concludes this conference. Thank you all for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.