Ladies and gentlemen, good day, welcome to the Q3 FY23 earnings conference call of Tata Chemicals Limited. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode. There will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touchtone phone. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Gavin Desa from CDR India. Thank you. Over to you, sir Thank you, Tanvi. Good day, thank you for joining us on Tata Chemicals Q3 FY23 earnings conference call. We have with us today Mr. R. Mukundan, the Managing Director and CEO, Mr. Zarir Langrana, the Executive Director, Mr. Nandakumar Tirumalai, Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I would like to mention that some of the statements made in today's discussions may be forward-looking in nature and may involve risks and uncertainties. I now invite Mr. Mukundan to begin proceedings as planned. Go. Thank you, Gavin. Good day and welcome everyone to our quarterly earnings call. I'm joined by my colleagues, Mr. Nandakumar Tirumalai, CFO, and Mr. Zarir Langrana, our Executive Director. I will start the discussion with few key highlights, following which I'll request Nandu to walk you through financial performance. During the quarter, the operations were steady. At the U.S., which had some elongated shutdown last quarter, it's gone back to the return back to the normal production run rate. Revenue and profitability were robust, with better realizations compared to Q3 of last year. Overall, demand for soda ash continues to be resilient, and we believe the market to be balanced with a bias towards increasing demand, especially with the reopening of China and newer glass applications. A point to be added here, the Chinese inventory is at a all-time low of 2.8 lakh tons, unusually low figure. Hopefully, this will catch up and normalize, but that's the current state of one specific geography. Rest of the geographies are more or less balanced, with India having some winter type slowdown, but is going to pick up fully in terms of overall demand. I think we are gonna be witnessing further tightening as we move forward. Costs are under control, in the sense that the prices of most of the input energy materials are very stable. They are not increasing anymore, and some of them are beginning to trend down a little bit. There are few non-operational one-off items during the quarter, which is by which the PAT was impacted even though EBITDA has been more or less at the same level as last quarter. We wanted to call out what is called as Normalized EBITDA, and Nandu will share the specifics of this, and these will flow through from our joint ventures. Our expansion projects are on schedule. More than that, I think our contracts for 2023 have been finalized right up to December 2023. The flavor of those contracts and the contracting arrangements you will get at the end of the Q4 results. I will not be making any statement except to say all our capacities are more or less booked and we are fully able to service our customers. I now hand over the floor to Mr. Nandakumar, who will take you through our financial performance. Thank you, Mukundan. Good morning, everyone. If you look at the numbers for the quarter, we had a good quarter. The revenues for the quarter was at INR 4,148 crores, a 32% growth over last year's Q3. The growth was broad-based with all the businesses and geographies performing well. EBITDA grew by 69%, starting at INR 902 crores for the quarter. EBITDA margins were at 32%, which was 13% in the same quarter last year. Moving on to individual businesses, starting with India. Revenues for the quarter was at INR 1,218 crores, higher by 31% compared to last year's Q3. Growth was supported by higher realization as compared to last year's Q3. The PAT for the current quarter was lower than last quarter's PAT on two factors. One was in terms of in Q2 in India, we had all dividends coming from investments which came in Q2, didn't come in Q3. We also had a one-off kind of a tax refunds coming in Q2, not coming in Q3. These two factors led to the quarter-on-quarter PAT coming down, while EBITDA is almost on par with last time's last quarter. U.S. maintained its momentum with revenue and volume growth of 48% and 4% respectively for the quarter. Q3 witnessed volume growth over Q2 as well. We had some shutdowns in Q2 in U.S. for some days. We made up for that in Q3 with higher volumes compared to Q2. The EBITDA margins for that added to around 35% as compared to 15% in last year's Q3 due to better operational efficiencies. We also prepaid $65 million of loan in the last nine months' time. Coming to U.K., we've been able to perform well with revenues improving by 34%. While the uncertainty with regards to energy prices remain, we are taking steps towards rationalizing our costs and improving the overall efficiencies. As far as Kenya is concerned, business did well and had another quarter of good performance with both revenue and profits having good growth over previous year. I also have to say for the first time, Kenya is debt-free. We prepaid all debts in the last nine months time. Regarding Nutra and Silica operations were at optimal level, and we are working towards increasing the capacity to better meet growing customer demand with better engagement. Additionally, for Nutra, our efforts are focused on acquiring customer approvals and increasing utilization at the existing unit. As far as Rallis is concerned, the Q3 was largely impacted due to the seasonality of the business. Management has continued its efforts on improving the product mix and cost efficiencies, widening its distribution reach. As Mukundan mentioned, there were a few one-offs in the quarter. I'll just talk about that. In Q3 we had, as explained earlier, India had the dividend income and the tax refunds in Q2 not coming in Q3. Apart from that, in Q3, there was a particular JV income, JV loss in the quarter. We have two, three JVs. One is in Morocco, one is Tata Industries. Overall for the quarter, we in the case of Morocco, the prices have come down also on the selling price compared to last year's Q3. Last year had a very good pricing of phosphoric acid, quarter on quarter or quarter over last year's Q3, the prices were lower, leading to a loss in Morocco in Q3. We also had a one-off, kind of, sale of one of the Tata Industries unit during Q3, that was booked in Q3. We don't expect this to continue in future in terms of industries, being a one-off case in Q3. That again return to the normal numbers going forward, we expect that. On a console basis, we had INR 2,119 crores of cash at the end of December, majority in India and U.S. and Kenya. The net debt was at INR 4,357 crores. During the year, the gross debt was lower due to debts being prepaid at around 15% of our debts have been prepaid during the current year. Our console CapEx was INR 445 crores for the quarter and INR 200 crores for nine months ending. With that, I'll close my comments. I hand you back to moderator to open up for the Q&A. Thank you. Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star one on their touch-tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we request you to please limit your questions to two per participant. Should you have any further questions, you may join the queue back. The first question is from the line of Sumant Kumar from Motilal Oswal. Please go ahead. Hi, sir. My question regarding soda ash India, we have seen a volume of 156,000 metric ton, and the similar kind of volume was in Q2, and the Q3 has a production loss because of plant shutdown. What was the key reason we are not showing the momentum what we have shown in FY21, even FY22 of a range of 170 to 178 or 80 million, thousand metric ton? I think India volumes largely, I think, if you really look at it, there's no issue in terms of demand in the market, nor is there an issue of, as I mentioned, there has been some bit of issues with respect to markets and some pockets of some pockets where there has been a bit of a slow pickup in the marketplace and additional imports which have come in during this quarter. As said, if you look at the leave the quarter-on-quarter shade aside because, you know, we can pick whether it's 10,000 more or 20,000 less. If you leave the quarter-on-quarter, look at the overall number, right? Globally, the inventory levels are low because the biggest producer, their inventory levels are low in China. We expect this one-off, one-off imports which had come in and also one-off softness in some of the markets, especially with respect to the pigments market, export market, which has been tough to sort of correct itself through demand from other segments, especially glass and detergents going forward. I would just place it on these two elements. My second question is, when we are talking about recession in the developed countries, U.S., Europe, and if the demand is going to decline from here and we are talking about favorable demand supply scenario, in that case, whatever scenario currently we have, do you think with the recession, whatever consumption we have of 16 million ton, there might be some decline and then there will be a pressure on the margin side in the soda ash. Whatever golden period we are seeing, there might be some pressure on that side? Actually, we are seeing the reverse. We are seeing reopening of China. I think we are gonna be short of material. There is no recession, I think, signs of recession in U.S. The demand is continuing to be strong. Even market like U.K., which has seen very high gas prices, we are fully booked and our customers have actually contracted fully with us. Kenya is fully sold out, so I don't think we are seeing any signs as because Kenya exports mostly to India and ASEAN. We have actually amount of understanding of what's happening in markets. Really, the current situation we are seeing is with China not fully coming back fully on stream. In fact, if China does come fully on stream, which we expect will happen, I think the situation is gonna be much, there's going to be much more demand. I think India is gonna have at least, three additional lines, and then China is gonna launch about four to five solar glass lines in the interval. I would say while there is a talk of recession, we are not seeing recession, signs in our demand pattern. And we are prepared for any sort of eventuality. The only thing we can control is our cost. We are extremely agile and extremely cost-focused. All I can say is that is in, that is that we do in any case, but, in terms of market side, we have not seen any signs. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Abhijit Akella from Kotak Securities. Please go ahead. Good morning, and thank you for taking my questions. Just a couple. One is on the India EBITDA numbers, you know, for the standalone India operations. We are still significantly lower than the high-water mark that you reported for the June quarter, which was about INR 398 crores of EBITDA from India. We're still at below INR 300 just for the second quarter running. Whereas one of our, you know, leading peers in India has actually reported more or less stable numbers for the last three quarters. If you could please just shed some light on what might be happening there. Yeah, I think, as far as we are concerned, I think, our most of our input costs, basically if you talk about, coal, coke or limestone, in Q1, there would have been inventory of the previous year purchases which would have been, and fresh inventory would have come in in the current Q2 and Q3. We don't see any major shift in the cost structure, which is remaining more or less stable. I don't want to comment about somebody else. I can only say that we are operating at optimum level at the current kind of operations. If at all going forward in the next fiscal year, some of these costs will ease because we are seeing signs of that happening. That's all I could say. Okay, sir. So just to understand, should we take this quarter's run rate as a normal number for the India business? Or, you know, should we expect to sort of trend back towards the June quarter number gradually? I can only... I cannot say beyond the point that as its cost, input costs come down, it would go back to probably the June. I think, that is a process which will happen. You can monitor the coal prices as much as I can monitor. Understood. Got it. The only other thing I just wanted to check about was, you know, while you did mention that we will be able to provide some flavor on the U.S. contract renegotiations only by end of this quarter, the news reports out there do seem to indicate that the kind of price increases that have been witnessed in the U.S. domestic market are, you know, at all-time high levels. You know, any color you could provide there, at least qualitatively, in terms of, you know, whether it's been a satisfactory contract renegotiation season for yourself and the industry? Thank you. Zarir, you want to comment on? I think broadly your comment is accurate. All new contracts that were entered into or, well, in our case, all have been entered into are at significantly higher pricing. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Vivek Rajamani from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Vivek, your line has been unmuted. We do not have Vivek in the queue anymore. We'll move to the next question from the line of Rohit Nagraj from Centrum Broking. Please go ahead. Yeah. Thanks for the opportunity. First question is on Kenya performance. If you look at QOQ performance, the EBITDA is down by about INR 10 crores, but the PAT is down by almost INR 45 crores. Any particular reason? You also alluded to the fact that we have prepaid the debt, so probably the interest component also must have been lower. Thank you. Yeah, Rohit, in terms of Kenya Q3, we had higher tax provisioning because the year is looking good, and that extra tax provisioning was made in Q3. That's why the PAT was lower than Q2. Right. got it. A second question is particularly in terms of India demand. Was there any weakness in Indian demand during Q3, particularly because the volumes on a QOQ basis have been flattish? How are we looking at when we have entered into Q4? Thank you. I already clarified, Rohit, number one, that, you know, in India the pigments and dyestuffs sector, which takes a bit of soda ash, I think they had export headwinds, and that has been widely reported even in the media. That has impacted bit of the demand issue. Also, some imports did come in in the intervening period, which I think was a one-off. We don't expect the level of imports with the kind of inventory levels which are in China. I don't think that's gonna continue. This was a one-off issue and which has led to a bit of inventory buildup in India, which will sort of smoothen out as we go through the year. Right. Got it. Thank you so much, sir. Thank you. The next question is from the line of S. Ramesh from Kotak Securities. Please go ahead. Good morning and thank you very much. If we were to understand the U.K. performance, they are going from strength to strength. The question is, how much is this pricing power sustainable, and is it some kind of a structural turnaround we are seeing in U.K? The second thought is if you can share some numbers in terms of the India consumption for the quarter for the industry in soda ash and how you see this consumption growing, say, in the next two years in India. If you can put some percentage growth numbers for the global consumption, that will be useful. Yeah. I think the growth rate, broadly what we are taking, and I'm going to give you a range because it's a range between 5.5%-6.5% is the broad growth rate we are expecting, especially on the back of some of the new lines that are coming on stream. Overall, globally, I think it should be anywhere between 2%-3% growth rate. That's really the broad number. Some parts of the world will probably just stagnate, will not grow that much. Other parts like Asia and Africa will continue to grow at a good rate. As far as U.K. is concerned, just to give a color on what kind of contracting has been entered, we have entered for next year what is known as fixed-margin contracts. We will have margin which is gonna be protected in the next year. This year it was a bit of an open contract which was linked to energy cost. Next year we have actually pegged it to fixed overall margin. I think you'll get a better color of that in Q4. We do expect that U.K. would perform well. Whether it's gonna be this kind of number, I don't want to comment on that, but it's gonna perform at a steady rate next year. If you talk about U.K. fixed-margin, is it gonna be on a ton, per ton basis, or is it gonna be on a percentage basis? Sorry, it is on per ton basis, please, not on percentage. It is not that if gas prices go two times, you'll get also benefit of certain percentage of the two. It is on whatever the pricing of gas is, on top of that you'll get certain number. For soda ash? For soda ash on bi carb, yeah. Yeah. In the second quarter, there was some mention of some one-off in U.K. And you said you will come back to. Is it possible to share what was the one-off? Because just to understand the U.K. performance at the EBITDA level, is it something which is the Normalized EBITDA for second and third quarter, or is there any one-offs? I will be glad to understand that. I think you should wait for Q4. Everything will become clear, how that normalize itself, yeah. I don't want to give any forward-looking statement. I've made this point that it's gonna fix margin and it is gonna be profitable. Beyond that, I don't want to make a point. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Ranjit from IIFL Securities. Please go ahead. Sir, thanks for this opportunity. Just wanted to get a bit more sense about post the ANSAC exit, how we are looking at the exports from U.S.? Would it also change the mix that we have currently from that geography? Second, how to look at the logistic costs over there? In terms of our contracts, they are more or less fixed here done even for exports. We are fully contracted out. As far as logistics is concerned, I think that we have entered into an arrangement with ANSAC. They will still handle the logistics, but they're not handle customer contracts. That is our understanding. These contracts are largely fixed price contracts? In U.S., they are fixed-price contract. It's not a one-year fixed-price contract, and calendar year. Yeah. That is what you are leading that should start reflecting from 4Q onwards. Yes. Also in U.K. it is calendar year, so fixed margin that will also be visible in Q4. Yeah. Could you share a bit more light on the geography mix from that U.S. exports? Is it more towards? Yeah, it is gonna remain more or less stable. If you take a broad brush, I think of the export volume, which is close to about 45% or so of the volume, I think 50% of that would go to LATAM, 50% to Asia Pacific. Sure, sir. That is helpful. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Riya Mehta from Equirus Investments. Please go ahead. Hello. thank you for giving me the opportunity. I just wanted to look at soda ash industry as a whole, since we're not having any global capacity coming up in the next two to three years. Everything is coming in 2027 in a major way, apart from our whatever incremental we are getting. what kind of realization jump do you see coming forward because of this? [audio distortion] Sorry. You're right in what you're saying, Riya. I think, we also aren't seeing any substantial new capacity coming up, at least till the 2026, 2027 timeframe. In between, you will see some capacity come up, but those will be primarily, debottlenecks. There is talk of some natural soda ash capacity coming up in China, but that number has been swinging quite wildly over these last few years. Something will come up. The volume and the timeframe is not very certain. Yes, as Mukundan mentioned, we are going to see continued, if not complete tightness in the market. The market will continue to remain balanced. A lot of that has flown into pricing in towards the latter half of last year and as we go into this year, and we expect that kind of firmness to continue. You'll see some shakes. You might see some flavors in various geographies. We do believe that the trend is going to be positive. Okay. Since China reopening and we are hearing of, you know, their manufacturing PMI increasing to 50.1, do you see that there, we might have some export opportunities out there, or at least the dumping would reduce to an extent and the domestic dynamics would get better and we can have whatever price cuts we had taken for soda ash in domestic arena, we can just recoup that? Do we see such a phenomena happening anytime soon? Very likely, as Mukundan also mentioned, with the reopening of China, with the new solar glass plants coming up there, with a slight relaxation on regulations on the real estate sector there, we are going to see or are expecting to see a rebound in Chinese demand. Obviously, that is going to have an impact on whatever they had exported or had available for export during the zero COVID timeframe. It might open up possibilities again for Chinese importing solar, whether those will come out of Turkey or North America, I won't take a guess right now. Obviously that will ease off also on Chinese import pressure that existed for maybe two or three months into the Indian market. I think that will ease off as well. Yeah. Just to add, I think, you would recall last year we had exported from Kenya into China for the first time. We, it is, it may be possible it will move in that direction. Let me just give- Again, go back to this point. China reopening is an issue to watch. Second issue to watch is that Europe has fared much better than what we anticipated. I think what we are missing also in this is that while Europe did go through a bit of a difficult period, I think Europe has fared better. The pressure which has come on the dyestuff and the pigment segment, which I spoke about in terms of exports to Europe, I think that may also be easing off because of how they have performed. Their gas storages are good. In fact, the gas prices in U.K. and Europe have almost come back to the normalized number, well below the peaks we've seen. A peak of GBP 7, it has come down to GBP 1.5 already per term. It's come more than 1/4 the figure which we saw at the peak. That explains the broad trend in the world. Of course, I cannot be, I can't predict economy, most economists also would not dare to predict economy. There is still talk of recession, we are not seeing that in our business. That is all I can say. Sorry, Mukundan. I'm glad you mentioned this. EU just yesterday released their container glass sales figures for last year, and it set a record high. It's the highest it's ever been. In a year that, you know, the R-word was being used and is still being used. That's another indicator. Thank you. The next question. Before we move to the next question, a reminder to all the participants, please enter star and one to ask a question. The next question is from the line of Chintan Modi from Haitong Securities. Please go ahead. Yeah, hi, sir, this is Chintan Modi from Haitong Securities. Two questions. One is, you know, despite having such a great year in terms of demand and also in terms of profitability, if you look at our volumes have for nine months have de-grown by almost 3%. I understand the Q2 phenomena, I mean, the one-off that we had. Even if that was a normalized quarter, I don't think we would have seen big growth in the volumes. That was one. Secondly, from, you know, despite having such good profits, our ROCs are just inching closer to 10%. Would like to know, like, you know, how does the management think about this, and how do you plan your future capital allocations in the long run? I think firstly on the volume piece, just to assure you, we are operating at full utilization almost. We are producing whatever we can. I think, unless we expand, I don't expect the volumes to go up substantially. Of course, the Q2, we had extended shutdown. I think that has played a part in this. I think that's where we stand. As capacities come on stream, that's only when you'll see the volume uptick happen. That should come in phases as we move forward, during the course of the next financial year, broadly. In terms of the... Capital employed. Capital employed, we are fairly clear in terms of putting our capital into the businesses which yield a return, and we are using them judiciously. In terms of ROC, I think there is a fair degree of the investment book which we have, which also partly is attributable to this whole process. Other than that, I think as a business, we are very clear that our return ratios are at a premium to a weighted average cost of capital. Ideally getting close to, I think, anywhere between 15% - 20% broadly. Yeah. In terms of investment book, any plans to, you know, say monetize a few, some of the investments? I will only say no comments. Our past history shows that, as and when there is in a phased manner, it has been happening over a period of time. That certainly is the board's decision. That's about it. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Pranita from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Hello. Hi, this is Vivek from Morgan Stanley. Sorry, sir, I dropped off the call before. Apologies for that. I'm sorry if you may have touched upon this question earlier. If you could just give some sense on the demand trends that you're seeing in different geographies. I know you mentioned that you've all your capacities are booked or for 2023, if you give some color in terms of the demand trends that you're seeing from your bigger end segments, that would be really helpful. Thank you. Overall, the demand is firm, I can only say that. Demand supply situation is balanced with tending towards the tightness, bias towards tightness, especially because China has reopened, their inventories are running low. I think we are continuing to see very positive buyers right across. I also mentioned that India did see a temporary blip with respect to one or two segments like dyes and pigments and also some one-off imports coming in Q3. That is not reflective of the growth trend in this market, which is close to about anywhere between 5.5% - 6.5% growth rate, which we are gonna expect, especially on the back of new capacities of glass lines coming on stream. China also is going to grow with at least five, six more glass lines coming on stream. Zarir already alluded to record container glass production in Europe. We are mainly selling in U.K. to container glass, no other segment. Lastly, LATAM continues to make steady progress in terms of their sectors too. Really if you say where is LATAM growth going to come from, and where is the Australian growth going to come from, it is going to be mostly from lithium carbonate and lithium businesses. The rest of the world is seeing a very strong pull coming from the solar glass business. The other segments are actually holding steady and growing further. All I can say, if the world GDP is gonna grow, I think, soda ash will be needed and bicarbonate will be needed, all the chemicals we make will be needed. Thank you, sir. Just a second question on U.K. and Kenya. Again, very strong numbers there. You had highlighted in the past that you could see some normalization in margins. Any color in terms of how you see this trending maybe in the next couple of quarters? I know you said that, you know, operations and demand are still very strong there. If you still maintain a bit of normalization might happen, any color on how that could trend over the next couple of quarters would be really helpful. Thank you. Yeah, I think, quarter four, without saying anything in U.K., as I mentioned, we are on a fixed margin, and you'll get a color of that when we give the results for the quarter four. This is the Q1 of the calendar year, the first of the contracts we just shifted. It'll be profitable operation, but it'll normalize as you use the right word, but I can't go beyond that. In Kenya, certainly the revenue side is not gonna see any major change because the prices are holding in all markets. I don't see that as an issue. I think, the fresh hedges of oil which we are taking, HFO which we are taking, are all coming at the current trend, trended oil, HFO prices. There is gonna be a bit of a normalization there also. I'll leave it there. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Akul Broachwala from IIFL Securities. Please go ahead. Thank you, sir, for the opportunity. Just a follow-up on U.K. again. For the nine months, we've reported INR 390 odd crores of EBITDA. Could you quantify the benefit that we are, kind of, you know, getting from Carbon capture unit? We don't have the ready figure. We don't have the figure readily. I think we'll keep that ready for next meeting, and we'll be able to give you some color on that. Sorry for that. Sure. Overall, like, you know, there was this news article stating that you've also entered into a contract with a European manufacturer for, you know, further, probably sourcing of low carbon. What's the sense out there? I mean, are you looking at this very closely in terms of, you know, yielding further benefits? It's a heads of term agreement for it's an MOU. It's an early phase. I think U.K. government is very keen on green and hydrogen economy. We are fully supportive. We would work closely, it's in a phase of early contract, sorry, understanding. What I mean to say by that is that for the Vertex to sort of go ahead with their investments, they need customer arrangements and also arrangements from government in terms of support to hydrogen, which is what we are securing as of now. As it sort of gets more mature, you should look at it. For next two years or so, I don't think we need to bother about this agreement. It's only much beyond that this agreement will come into place. Understood. Secondly, specifically for North America, like, you know, many of these large manufacturers have either, you know, revived their capacity or announced new capacity. Are we also looking at that opportunity in near term or maybe, you know, few years down the line for adding fresh capacities? Yeah. I think we've already announced that we will be moving from 2.8 to 3.2 million ton. I think that's already on in the works. In India, we are going to 1 million, and there is also 1.3 million expansion happening in India. I think these are part of the expansion processes on our journey to double our overall, nearly double our overall capacity. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Manikantha Garre from Franklin Templeton. Please go ahead. Hi. Thanks for providing the opportunity, sir. Sir, I remember from your earlier commentary that you mentioned that you have signed contract-. Sorry to interrupt. W e are not able to hear you clearly. Please speak through the handset. Yes, I'm on handset only. How about now? It's still the same. Go ahead, sir. Please go ahead and try to. Yeah. Okay. Sir, you mentioned earlier that your capacity is currently fully booked for this calendar year. Just wanted to understand, would there be typically any take-or-pay percentage clause in this quarterly or annually annual contract that you sign? That's my first question. No. No. no take-or-pay. Take-or-pay doesn't work. Okay. It's 100% offtake has to be done with it. Okay. The second question is, as you pointed out and as we have been tracking gas prices in U.S., which have, you know, fallen significantly in Q3 also. What I see costs going up sequentially in U.S. and U.K. for us. Is it because of the hedges that we have in place and as a result of which we are not seeing the benefit yet? If that is the case, which quarter we expect to see the current low gas prices, you know, probably getting reflected? No, I think it's the reverse. We've already seen the benefit of hedges we placed. As these hedges unwind, it will go to realistic figures of current gas prices, which have tended down. I think what has really happened to us is because of the hedges, we were not affected by peak gas prices. I think we've sailed through that entire process through input costs almost remaining steady. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Arjun Khanna from Kotak Mahindra Asset Management. Please go ahead. Thank you, sir, for taking my question. Sir, I just wanted some color on our specialty piece. We understand what's with Rallis. It's a separately listed entity. If you could just give us flavor, how does one understand the seasonality in this? Because we see profitability change substantially quarter-to-quarter. Secondly, if you could, you mentioned in the opening remarks, certain losses in Tata Industries. Could you bring out that number? What was that loss per se? How do you see our Morocco JV pan out given that phosphoric prices are on the way down? Thank you. I'll talk about second part, first, Arjun, in terms of the thing. We have this JV loss, INR 91 crores in the quarter that consists of three or four JVs. We don't really give a break up of that in terms of which JV has made how much losses. It consists of the, one is the Morocco, where the phosphoric acid prices have come down in Q3 compared to Q2. In fact, they made a profit in Q2 and a small loss in Q3. In case of Tata Industries, one is the normal, two is the one-off loss we had in the quarter in industries, and we got our share of 9% we hold in the company here. That we don't expect that to repeat going forward. It's more like a one-off only for the quarter. On account of a business sold by them to outside industries. Going back to the Moroccan phosphoric acid entity. Firstly, I think while DAP prices and phosphate phosphoric acid prices are coming down, the issue is gonna be that that also reflects back into the rock phosphate prices. While there could be some course correction period where price fall but the rock phosphate price moves. The rock phosphate may be coming through coming in through some internal... Sorry, past purchases. As those stocks sort of get consumed, it'll also normalize. Generally these have tended to move in the same direction, so with some margin expansion in the periods of tightness. DAP, phosphoric acid and rock phosphate move almost in the same direction. There's a margin which you earn, and the margin expands if there is a tightness in the market. As far as our view of phosphate is concerned, it also remains as a key resource. We do believe that world will continue to see phosphate consumption on a growing pattern as food production gathers even more momentum in terms of access to high quality fertilizer. Also in terms of the same topic, Arjun, I think look at Morocco, we had very huge profits last year and also we're now getting more normalized as per the past trend. Now what is being seen is the right numbers in terms of the profits. Sure. Just to understand that when you say right numbers in terms of losses or do you see this move back to historical profit? Yeah, I think if you look at the historical numbers of the profit in Morocco last many years, we make about INR 200 crore-INR 300 crore profit every year as a company. We get 1/3 of that. That's the past trend. Last year was an abnormal year in terms of the pricing shot up and we made a big gain. Otherwise, the INR 200 crore-INR 300 crore is what they make generally year on year in Morocco. We get 1/3 of that in our books here. Perfect. Well understood, sir. Sir, the first question, sir? Yeah. Rallis, the seasonality is like this. I think their best quarter tends to be Q2. Sir, Rallis seasonality is understood, sir. Just speaking ex-Rallis, is there seasonality to the business ex-Rallis? No, there's no seasonality. There is no seasonality in the other business. You know, during monsoon, some offtake may reduce, which is because some of the industries may be having lower production during monsoon. Otherwise, there is no seasonality. Our tire line in Silica is fully booked, 100% utilization. Our food line in Silica is about 75% utilization. That goes mainly into toothpaste and Battery separator markets. The tire line goes to the tire manufacturer and rubber manufacturers. As well as our [FOS] is prebiotic. The fermentation platform is concerned. There, the utilization is about 68%-70% broadly. I think as the utilization moves up, these will move towards positive. You know, the DC margin in this business tends to vary between 25% in fermentation and 13%. I think those percentages will keep improving as utilization improves. We have to get more customer orders and increase our sales of these products. That's what we are putting effort on. There is a broad acceptance of these products. The customer base is good, but I think we have to continue to serve them to get the utilization up. Thank you. The next question is from the line of S. Ramesh from Nirmal Bang Equities. Please go ahead. Yeah. On the India speciality, is it possible to give a timeline, in terms of when we can see a positive EBIT in your standalone reporting? In general reporting in terms of positive EBIT, I can only say that we have to scale this beyond the current pilot scale. As I mentioned to you, the board has cleared 50,000 ton Silica expansion. I think that will take time to come on stream. I think at least 24 months to execute that project. We've just finished the acquisition of land and the groundbreaking in Cuddalore. Till that time, this is a pilot plant, as I mentioned. I think these were to get customer acceptance. Okay. Just going back to your second quarter call, there was some mention of some one-off items in the U.K. P&L. Is it possible to share that? Are we to understand that the U.K. performance in third quarter is without any one-off item? There is no one-off in third quarter in terms of U.K. Yeah. Yeah, U.K. is a normal operation in third quarter, and the fourth quarter we will be switching to fixed margin for the next call calendar year. No, I'm referring to what you mentioned in the second quarter call. There was a reported one-time item in the U.K. P&L for second quarter. You were supposed to come back on that. If you can give us some clarity on that, it'll be useful. There was some land sold in U.K., which was a small gain booked in Q2, Ramesh. Apart from that, there was no other one-off in Q2, and Q3 is without any one-offs in the U.K. Okay, thank you very much. All the best. Thank you, Ramesh. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Saket Kapoor from Kapoor Company. Please go ahead. Sir, could you please explain the reason for the increase in power and fuel cost on a Q-on-Q basis from INR 700, I'm talking about the consolidated, and the freight and forwarding charges? Your thought process on this. I'm talking about the power and fuel cost of INR 901. See, that to look at the whole thing, see, we got power and fuel has got two components. One is in terms of your consumption of coal and in India and gas in U.K. and U.S., and also U.S. consumes coal. Broadly, the quarter-on-quarter, the gas prices, you know, have gone up. It's come down now. That reflects the increase in the gas prices across geographies, mainly in U.S. and U.K. It went up sharply in Q3. Come down to, let's say GBP 1.50 a term in U.K. That's compared to about GBP 4 or GBP 5 in Q3. There is a, there is a pass on in the realization also. That it did not have a dent on the margin. This should be understood. Correct. Correct, correct. whatever you're seeing as increase in the power and fuel and freight has been, as is coming in the top line. Okay, sir, as you mentioned that China is having the historically low inventory, but, and for India domestic, domestically, we are having some inventory. Was it that this inventory being from the Chinese only before their reopening? If you refer to the Chinese prices, sir, just referring to their website, the Chinese prices have moved up more than CNY 110 over a period of last one month. Does those prices have any relevancy on how the market is shaping up? Would you like to throw some share some thoughts on the same, sir? In terms of India inventory, I think, broadly, you know, most companies are, would hold between 12 days of inventory. That has probably gone to 20 days of inventory. It's not a big number. I just wanted to leave it there. The Chinese domestic prices moving up and down, I think, that's a separate phenomenon. All I would say is that the international prices are currently steady and holding. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Yogesh Tiwari from Arihant Capital. Please go ahead. Thank you, sir. Am I audible? Yes. My first question is on U.K. If I refer to your presentation, the sales volume for soda ash has declined on a quarter-on-quarter basis from about 69 - 63. What would be the driver for it? It's just the timing. It's a very minor decline. It's just timing issue, nothing major. Okay. Even on a year-on-year basis, it has been a decline. Any reason for the continuous decline like? I think we are fully servicing all the orders. I think that's what we are doing. We may have cut out some of the low-yielding tail which was going to some customers. I think that we are running the business to maximize bottom line. Sure, sir. Last question on the India business. In November, we actually took a price reduction in Light Soda Ash and Dense Soda Ash. How is the situation like in India in terms of prices and pricing? I think, that again was a bit of a seasonal move which was made, and I think, also reflective of some input cost reduction which we were seeing coming in. In terms of, if you ask me, as the inventory situation eases, which is what we are expecting in the next two months, I think the prices should again be on a firmer footing. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Rohit Sinha from Sunidhi Securities. Please go ahead. Yeah. Hi, sir. Thank you for my question. Just a few things. I mean, one is, as you mentioned that, this pigment and dyestuff industry has facing some headwinds because of which we lost some bit of demand. Just wanted to understand what kind of percentage, if at all, could you mention that, this industry is consuming as soda ash? 4%-5% overall demand. Okay. Okay. Secondly, on the power sourcing, just wanted to understand that, I mean, how we are looking to go ahead with green energy kind of thing or, are we looking to reduce some power cost with sourcing for renewable powers? Yeah, I think, we have four different units which are on a different trajectory. U.K. already is 100% on gas, I think the next step for them would be to explore hydrogen because they are on the cleanest fuel in terms of carbon intensity already. Magadi, it will move from HFO to mostly solar for the energy requirement. U.S. would move. They are 22% on gas, 70% on coal. They would also switch to gas over a period of time, that is a trajectory they will take. India is gonna have a combination. India will move a combination of from 100% coal to renewable solar as well as to biomass as two fuel switch options which we will be doing over a period of time. Okay. Any timeline, I mean, in this switching? Our teams are working to reducing 30%, which means wherever it's 100% will go down to 70% carbon intensity, which means the coal usage should come down to 70% of the current level. Thank you. That was the last question for today. I now hand the conference over to management for closing comments. Overall, I just want to close by saying that we are continuing to see a steady demand supply situation. Next year looks to be in a good steady because with the reopening of China as well as better than expected European performance, especially with respect to their gas storage and their ability to manage through this difficult cost situation which they were facing. With this, we are confident that our trajectory which we had laid out for our business is on the right path. In addition to that, just adding a further point to the last question, we are also augmenting our efforts both in the area of sustainability and green, going green, and adding a digital layer to our operations, and we will continue to report progress of all these efforts, quarter-on-quarter. Thank you all, and have a excellent quarter going ahead. Thank you. Thank you. On behalf of Tata Chemicals Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you can now disconnect your lines.