Thank you, Pari. Good afternoon everyone and thank you for joining us on the Coromandel International Limited Q3 FY26 earnings conference call.

From the company, we have with us Mr. Sankarasubramanian, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, and Mr.

Deepak Natarajan, CFO. We would like to begin the call with a brief opening remarks from the management, following which we will have the forum open for interactive Q&A session.

I would now like to invite Mr. Sankarasubramanian to make the initial remarks.

Thank you, and over to you, sir.

Good afternoon everyone, and thank you, Ranjit, for organizing the call. I will begin with a brief overview of the business environment during Q3, followed by Coromandel's operational financial performance for the quarter.

On the macroeconomic front, amidst global uncertainties, India continues to remain well-positioned. The first advance estimate placing our GDP growth at 7.4%, driven by services and manufacturing.

During the quarter, RBI reduced the repo rate by 25 basis points in December '25 to 5.25%, supporting domestic liquidity. During the quarter, the rupee remained under pressure.

On year-to-date basis, INR depreciated close to 7%, driven by a widening trade deficit and higher capital outflows by FPIs. On the agriculture side, late withdrawal of southwest monsoon led to crop damage in select pockets of west and south India, impacting agri-input consumption during October and November.

This was particularly visible in lower chilli acreage and grape segments, affecting CPC sprays and nutrient application. India experienced normal northeast monsoon rainfall at 102% of long-period average, resulting in improved reservoir levels.

All-India storage stands at 107% of last year and 125% of long-term average. Rabi sowings are up 3% year-on-year as of mid-January, with growth across major crops.

Wheat has moved up, rice has moved up sharply by 22%, and oilseeds, cereals, all have shown positive trend. On the regulatory side, draft Pesticides Management Bill 2025 has been released for public consultation.

This entails time-bound approvals of generics, digitization of registration process, and periodic reviews of registration for safety and efficacy. Draft seeds bill were also released during the quarter, which can lead to formalization of sector, improve traceability, and reduce compliance burden.

During the quarter, Department of Fertilizers launched an integrated digital fertilizer claim process, enabling paperless transaction, faster settlement of subsidy claims. In Q3, government released supplementary grants of ₹18,000 crore for subsidy.

With this, total subsidy outgo for the year may reach up to ₹1.86 lakh crore for the year 2025-26. As you are aware, Union budget was announced yesterday.

The budget has maintained continuity and agri-focused central schemes like crop insurance, interest subvention, commodity price support, and PM-KISAN for income support. A notable step is the proposed launch of multilingual AI-enabled platform integrating the AgriStack with ICAR agricultural best practices and focus on promotion of high-value crops.

As you all know that for the year '26-'27, subsidy allocation has been fixed at ₹1.17 lakh crore for urea and ₹54,000 crore for phosphatic fertilizers under the NBS scheme. In this, indigenous manufactured fertilizer subsidies have been maintained at current year estimates, with some moderation in imported fertilizer subsidies.

I think looking at the past trend, we feel the allocation of subsidy is reasonably adequate, marginally better than last year budget allocation. As you all know that government always comes up with supplementary grant as and when it is required.

I think it's a fair allocation, adequate subsidy allocation has been made. Recently announced India-EU FTA prima facie seems positive for agri-input sector and can open up possibilities on export of agrochemicals, specialty fertilizers, bioproducts marketing, and CDMO through.

Of course, the finer details are yet to evolve. On the industry performance, commodity side, most of the key raw materials firmed up during the quarter.

Phos acid in the quarter beginning moved up from $1,250 to $1,290. During the quarter, we witnessed a sharp increase in the price of sulfur and sulfuric acid.

Sulfur has moved up to $550, mainly triggered due to demand from LFP sector in China, nickel refining in Indonesia, and also supply disruption from Russia. Similarly, supply-side outages in major source of Saudi Arabia and Trinidad led to sharp increase in ammonia prices as well.

Overall, due to unseasonal rains and delayed withdrawal of monsoon, industry's fertilizer consumption was affected. Overall consumption during the quarter came down by 7%.

However, thanks to intervention from the government, the supplies have remained robust and the production has also been good. Imports went up by 15%, 36% during this quarter.

Overall, I would say it is a tough quarter for the industry, as extended rains have affected the consumption in agricultural pockets, and sharp increase in raw material prices and currency depreciation put pressure on margins for the fertilizers. However, on the positive note, we continue to see positive consumption shift happening towards NPKs, which improves balanced nutrition.

On year-to-date basis, overall phosphatics, the share of NPK stands at 60%, moved up from what it used to be 50% two years before. SSP industry has tracked well despite challenges of higher-priced sulfuric acid.

The consumption has moved up during this quarter. Coming to crop protection business, the domestic industry was impacted by lower acreage of key agrochemicals consuming crops like chilli and grapes, and reduced sprays due to extended monsoon spell.

Globally, channel inventories have largely normalized, and there's a good demand for some of our technical molecules, especially mancozeb. While there were lower instances of pest infestation, fungicide and herbicide applications have been steadily going up, which augurs very well for our crop protection business.

Coming to business performance on fertilizers, as I mentioned, we witnessed a very challenging quarter with the higher raw material price, depreciated rupee, and not fully compensated NBS rates, and the slowdown in consumption. Despite all these headwinds, the business delivered a resilient performance supported by very competitive sourcing of key raw materials, operational efficiencies, and our plants have been operating at 100% capacity utilization, and our focused market approach to offer value-added products.

The company achieved highest-ever quarterly fertilizer production of 9.9 lakh tonnes, which is 18% up over the last year. Phosphoric acid production also has grown over the last year.

Our backward integration project at Kakinada for sulfuric acid and phos acid are progressing very well as per the timelines and will be commissioning during this quarter. The granulation train expansion is also on track, and it will be commissioned in the third quarter of the financial year '26-'27.

On the sales front, happy to note that we have become one of the largest phosphatic player in the country. The Q3 primary sale at 11.2 lakh tonnes, close to last year levels.

Mainly we have moderated the sales to in tune to the consumption, especially in the state of Andhra and Telangana. Of course, the company has performed very well in Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu, offsetting some drop in Andhra.

Our consumption-based market share in Q3 moderated to 14% as against last year 15%, which has slightly taken our channel inventory. We do hope that this will get moderated in Q4.

Our share of unique grades has improved from 33% to 36% during the quarter. Also we took some price correction during this quarter, slightly to 4%, to offset the impact of increase in input prices and currency depreciation.

In SSP, Coromandel continues to do well, be a market leader, led by differentiated products such as GroPlus and SSP plus Urea. The major share of these unique grades constituting 47% of the total SSP volume.

For the full year, our phosphatic fertilizer volumes tracking well. On a nine-months basis, we have achieved 36.3 lakh tonnes, up by 10% compared to last year period.

Our consumption-based market share stands at 17%, showing slight improvement over last year. We continue to work on new market expansions, and on year-to-date basis, sales have grown to 4 lakh tonnes, a 30% growth over last year.

This are especially from the northern markets, which are not catered to in the past. We have created a seed marketing and the results are paying off.

This will be helpful as and when we commission the new plant next year. Our mining project at Senegal has stabilized the operation and has become a largest exporter of rock phosphate from Senegal.

We are in line to achieve annual volume of 3.5 lakh tonnes of rock production this year. As you all know that we have set up a subsidiary company to form a joint venture, Secunderabad India Private Limited, for manufacturing and sale of phosphogypsum-based products.

The project has commenced. Next 15 months, we should be able to get diversified product portfolio from gypsum.

The specialty nutrient business, which deals with water-soluble fertilizers and organic fertilizers, have achieved record Q3 volumes driven by improved performance of micronutrients and organic categories. Business has introduced four new products.

Also project what we announced in the last quarter for setting up a MAP water-soluble fertilizer plant has commenced its activity at Vizag. Nano continues its growth trajectory in Q3, registering strong double-digit growth with a strong focus on liquidation and channel engagement.

The company has become a market leader in Nano DAP. The product has been very well received across the various segments, especially in horticulture segments.

Business is also evaluating global markets and has received very positive response, and trials are happening across the globe. As and when the registration happens, this opens up a new opportunity for exporting Nano DAP globally.

For the year, the business has marketed over 4,000 kL of nano products, which is 68% growth over the last year, and leads the market in Nano DAP segment, as I mentioned earlier. On the drone spraying business, we have covered close to 2 lakh acres during the first nine months, offering scalable and efficient precision application solutions to the farmers.

Retail, despite a slow start to the quarter, delivered a commendable performance with 20% year-on-year growth. During the quarter, the company added 84 new stores in Q3, taking the total store count to 1,113.

Business continue to focus on new initiatives such as e-commerce, drone spraying, direct delivery, and insurance business. On the crop protection bio business, as you all see from the number, crop protection has reported a very strong performance, benefiting from favorable demand for its key molecules across export and domestic market.

Standalone revenue for the quarter stood at ₹785 crore, registering a growth of 24%. EBIT grew by 74% to ₹158 crore, resulting in margin moving from 14% last year to 20% in Q3.

Export growth was driven by volume uptick and higher NRV of major technicals and addition of key customer accounts. Despite challenging business environment, domestic B2C improved sales during the quarter.

Business is expanding its channel presence and has added 1,000 new dealers during the year. New product share stood at 25% on year-to-date basis, reflecting company's continued focus on portfolio diversification and steady traction of recent launches.

B2B segment reported a very robust performance across product portfolio. In Q3, company expanded capacity for mancozeb, and is further looking to expand capacities and initiated activity for the same at Sarigam plant.

The bio business improved realization for its azadirachtin products that support revenue and margin growth. The business is actively working on new product development, including microbial platform and partnership opportunities on biological APIs.

On its Coromandel subsidiary, NACL Industries had a tough quarter. While it is better than last year, the margins trended lower as domestic B2C sales were impacted due to adverse market conditions.

During the quarter, NACL has successfully completed rights issue, the proceeds of which will be used to retire all high-cost debt and also used for creating capex which can help in reducing cost and improving operational efficiencies for NACL plants. During the quarter, the company's credit rating was upgraded to CRISIL AA Stable.

We are working closely with NACL team on synergy areas including R&D, manufacturing, marketing, and registration. The company's drone subsidiary, Dhaksha, is at an early stage of its growth journey, and its full potential is yet to be realized.

The company is undertaking series of corrective actions and remain confident of improving the performance in the coming period. In parallel, efforts are underway to pursue technical partnership with leading organizations and improve execution across defense, agriculture, surveillance, and training segments.

Overall, Coromandel has performed very well in a challenging business environment, with all business segments showing improvement over last year. The company continues to explore growth opportunities across both subsidy and non-subsidy business, while remaining focused on operational excellence, cost discipline, and long-term value creation.

I now request Deepak for taking you through the finance-related updates.

Thank you, Shankar. Good afternoon, everyone.

With regard to the turnover, the company recorded a total income of ₹8,863 crore for the quarter and ₹25,759 crore for the nine months ended December, recording a growth of 26% for the quarter and 33% for the nine-month period. The share of subsidy business for the quarter and for the full-year nine-month period end stands at 82%.

As far as profitability is concerned, consolidated EBITDA for the quarter stands at ₹805 crore against ₹722 crore last year, and for the nine-month period ending December, it stands at ₹2,738 crore against ₹2,202 crore last year. Subsidy business share in EBITDA stands at 62% for the quarter and 67% for the nine-month period.

This is a improvement from the previous year's number, which stands at 69% for the quarter and 71% for the nine-month period. Net profit after tax for the quarter stands at ₹488 crore in comparison to ₹508 crore for the quarter, and for the nine-month period, it stands at ₹1,784 crore against ₹1,476 crore, 1,476 crore for the last year.

The company continues to receive, collect subsidy on a timely basis. For the year, for the quarter ended December, ₹2,571 crore has been collected, compared to ₹2,036 crore last year.

For the nine-month period, the subsidy collection stands at ₹7,208 crore versus ₹5,891 crore in the previous year. The subsidy outstanding as of December stands at ₹3,785 crore, compared to ₹2,095 crore last year.

Further, the subsidy collections continues to be robust, and we have collected another ₹1,300 crore in the month of January, which covers sales up to last week of December. We continue to see a volatile rupee in Q3 in the range of ₹87.83 to ₹91 to a dollar.

We continue to proactively hedge our exposures on a prudent and a conservative basis. The board in its meeting held on 29th has approved an interim dividend of ₹9 per equity share, representing 900% on face value of ₹1 equity share.

Thank you. With that, I turn it over to Ranjit.

We can take any questions you have.

Sir, good afternoon and thanks for the opportunity. Sir, first question is related to the crop protection business.

For nine months, if we see, we have clocked close to around 21% increase in the sales as compared to last nine months of FY25. If you can just share how much was the volume growth out of this 21% sales growth what we have achieved?

See, I can give you segment-wise growth. Probably volume I'll come back.

Export has grown by 30%, and domestic B2B institution segments have moved by 36%, and domestic formulation B2C business has moved up by 5%. In fact, as I mentioned, domestic industry faced rough weather during Q4.

The growth was marginal. It's more, I would say, volume and the value more or less it's aligned.

You can take volume growth also in the same level.

Correct. Sir, one possibly the improvement of margins is because of the higher volumes, and we would have achieved a operating leverage out of our plants with the increased capacity utilization.

The second part possibly could be the price increase or is it because of the launch of newer products out of what we have announced in the start of the year that we have launched close to around 10 new products in FY26? If you can just share your views in terms of this improvement in margins what we have achieved.

The new products have helped in the domestic formulation business segment. Actually that has to really play out.

If you see overall volume growth in domestic formulation still was single-digit in the quarter. On a nine-months basis, it is 15% growth over the corresponding period last year.

You are right, partially to help, but it can do much more, but for the unseasonal rains we had, we expected much better growth. Our growth has come from export segment, where we have grown in terms of volume as well as in terms of price.

Being export-oriented, the currency also helped us to achieve this numbers. It is the combination of volume and export revenue increase, and also the new product in domestic market, even though it has not played out fully.

Combination of this.

Got it. Sir, just a longer part or a longer-view question.

We do export to Europe as a continent for our crop protection business. Last year we exported close to around ₹1,000 crore in total of our exports from the crop protection business.

A, with the FTA being signed with Europe, and B, with this Chinese currency getting appreciated by close to around 9% over last one month, how does it will help us in terms of improving our exports to the Europe, and as a business opportunity, how do you see Europe as a destination for our crop protection business? Thank you so much.

See, we currently export predominantly bio products to Europe, not much of agrochemicals. Our export of agrochemicals is more to Latin America and to various other countries globally, not much to Europe.

I feel with our current India's export share is very marginal at 9%, and with the elimination of duties up to 12%-13%, I think it will improve the export competitiveness. We need to explore this further.

At this point of time, it has not really played out for us. We need to see how best we can leverage this.

Especially it opens up a lot of opportunities for the bio segment to increase the share of business because of the stringent restrictions on molecules. I think bio can provide a great opportunity for Coromandel with the recent FTA.

On the agrochemical side, on the other hand, we do expect some benefits to come in on the import of intermediates and key raw materials which we currently buy from Europe. Where currently the tariffs are as high as 22%, with de-tariffing, I think that's also help us to access these raw material intermediates at a competitive price point.

I would say the export benefit for bio and import of raw materials for agrochemicals.

Correct. What would be our share of exports to Europe out of, let's say, ₹1,000 crore what we have achieved in FY25?

Any number which you can share?

I don't think it will be more than 15% to 20%.

Got it. Sir, last bit from my side.

We mentioned in the opening remarks that we have expanded the mancozeb capacity and further evaluating to expand. If you can share in percentage terms also that how much we have expanded or debottlenecked for mancozeb and how much more we are planning to add?

Thank you.

We have expanded 20%, and now we are planning to expand another 30%.

Got it, sir. Thank you so much and wish you all the best.

Thank

you.

Opportunity, sir. Sir, first question on the fertilizer.

Taking the current raw material prices, be it sulfur, ammonia, and phos acid, subsidy into consideration, do we need price hikes, does the industry need price hikes, and in our case, do we need price hikes to have our normalized margins of close to ₹5,000 EBITDA per tonne?

See, as I always mentioned, it is very difficult to estimate the margins on a quarterly basis. On annualized basis, this EBITDA ₹5,000-₹5,500 is still achievable for the current year as well.

There will be some drop in the margins in current situation with a higher sulfur price and the currency depreciation and not so compensating subsidy. On a quarterly basis, there may be a reduction, but on annualized basis, a ₹5,500 remains.

Also it's a function of inventory what you carry and what raw materials you have. Also we have taken some price corrections on key grades which we sell in fourth quarter.

With that combination of inventory and the product mix, still we are there to an annualized target of ₹5,000 to ₹5,500 EBITDA per tonne.

Got it, sir. The phos acid price, has it been decided for the quarter, sir, and what would that be?

Not yet. Currently the $1,290 remains.

Industry is not keen to increase this price any further. Looking at the various aspects, industry will be pushing for cost reduction in phos acid price.

Got it. Sir, also on this backward integration plant, which is expected to start this quarter, what is the kind of utilization that we plan to have during the kharif?

We generally operate the plant at 100% from day one, and why not again for this project as well? We'll operate the plant at 100% capacity.

Understood, sir. Sir, also on the crop protection, you did mention about the export B2B and retail.

What would be the rough mix? Exports we used to be at 0.40% of the overall portfolio.

Does that still remain, and B2B and B2C, what would be the mix, sir?

B2B is around 25%. B2C will be 30%.

And 40%-45%

is

exports.

Yeah. Understood.

Sir, in B2C, what would be the volume and pricing impact, roughly?

14% growth.

14% growth in volume? Value.

B2C?

B2C alone. This I am talking about nine months.

If you talk about... I was referring to the last quarter, sir, last quarter.

Last quarter is only 5%.

That will be more volume-led and there would have been some price impact there?

No, price actually we maintained it. It is more coming from volume only.

We didn't change the price much.

Understood, sir. Thank you.

Hi, sir, Ankur this side. Thanks for the opportunity.

First question on the growth and your margin outlook for the crop protection business, both on the standalone basis as well as on consolidated basis, given NACL acquisition, how do you look the growth there?

See, I would suggest at this point of time to we operate as a two separate entities. As synergy benefits are yet to play in.

In the case of CPC business of Coromandel, definitely our contributions are doing good and it is in the range of 20%, which we are confident of sustaining or improving it. For the quarter, we achieved 20%, and nine months is 18%.

This trend will continue in the coming quarters. In the case of Nagarjuna, we had a setback last year, and after we acquired, this year a lot of actions have happened.

The main plant of Srikakulam is operating almost at close to full capacity, and lot of cost-reduction measures are taken up. They've already moved on EBITDA percentage standalone, they have moved to 9%-10%, and which they should be able to sustain and grow further.

They're also looking to improve the product mix and bring in new products. Currently they have a challenge of lower capacity utilization of their Dahej facility.

Their margins will be muted until such time they find alternate use, which they are working on. Once that happens, then their margins should also move up for NACL.

Sure, sir. Just a follow-up there, one on the CDMO or the industrial chemical side, any thoughts or any progress there considering the market also opening up a bit?

Secondly, just clarification on the NACL margin accretion, this will be only led by Dahej, that's the only factor left, or there could be more levers which can drive the operating performance here for NACL?

No, the mix change in the formulation business, which is B2C, that should improve the margin significantly. The current drag is mainly coming from Dahej.

Dahej should improve it. The business is also working on introducing new products, introducing intermediate products, improved capacity utilization Dahej also will add to that.

There'll be multiple levers they'll be looking at. Also we will look to synergize in terms of utilizing their capacity for manufacturing some of the molecules which Coromandel intends to introduce.

It'll be a combination of multiple things.

Sure, sir. Any thoughts on the industrial chemical side or the purified phos acid or the other products that you're working on?

No, we are pursuing our interest on the projects what we talked about earlier in terms of purified phosphoric acid, and also on CDMO play, various companies with whom we have been working for last two years, we have moved into next stage. They have evinced interest, and with Nagarjuna also in our fold, the global players are already reaching out to us for outsourcing some of their molecules and intermediates, including fluorination chemistry.

They are all in the nascent stage, we will update as and when we progress. It is tracking very well, I would say.

A lot of interests have been shown by the global players after we have acquired this NACL.

Sure, sir. Just lastly, on the standalone crop protection business, mancozeb has done very well for us in this financial year.

What's your thought on overall growth there, ex of mancozeb, given that we have launched a lot of new products historically? Just from that perspective.

CPC has to be seen in terms of individual segments. Exports, mancozeb continues to be the major play, and it will remain so, and we will be expanding capacities.

We can't be seeing without mancozeb. It's integral part of the business.

We are trying to capture the value chain there by diversifying product portfolio by introducing combination molecules and backward integrate in mancozeb. I think mancozeb is going to be the integral part of our growth play in export segment.

I don't think we can look at without mancozeb on exports. On the other hand, in the domestic B2C, a lot of in-licensed molecules.

We have a pipeline of 90 registrations which are happening, and we have a slew of products coming in the next two, three years. That will sustain the formulation growth.

Actually we planned for at least 25% growth in the current year, but for this unseasonal rains we have achieved, and still we have achieved close to 15% even such a bad season. With the increased territories, we have added 30 territories in the current year.

Our game plan will be to expand our market territories and synergize our operations with NACL also. We'll be looking to increase our formulation business in domestic market by at least 20%-25% going from year on year from now on.

That will be our opportunity blended business. It will be a combination of domestic B2C growth of 20%-25%, mancozeb-led growth in exports.

Having said that, we are also expanding our other technicals, whether it is malathion capacity expansion or acephate capacity or looking at new stroller chemistry for which we have announced capex last year, which held it back after NACL acquisition, we will be creating those capacities also. We are also expanding our AI portfolio as well in the global markets.

Great, sir. Thanks for your input.

All the best. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thanks for the opportunity. I hope I am audible.

I have a few questions. Firstly on your comments on sulfur prices increasing, as of now with current raw material prices for sulfur as well as rock and your procurements from Senegal and sourcing strategies, can you give some comments on current unit economics of backward integration project considering sulfur price have moved roughly 5x, I think it was $100 a tonne a year ago and now it is close to $550 a tonne?

Would you like to provide some comments how you are looking at the dynamics and unit economics of the backward integration as of now?

It's very difficult to put any number, but all I can say is there has been a reduction in the value addition compared to what it was 6 to 9 months before. Obviously sulfur has skyrocketed from $180-$200 to $500 now.

Fortunately, the rock prices have been moderating, whether it has not gone up and has softened a bit. That has cushioned this impact to a great extent.

Also, let us understand the fact that phosphoric acid price also has been going up continuously. What it was $1,000-plus dollars last year, corresponding period, now it is $1,290.

If you look at the increase in phos acid and the stable or softened rock prices, the value gap is moderated, but still it's not very low. We do feel that this sulfur price increase is not sustainable.

Sulfur has always used to be a disposal issue. I think it is a phenomenon of short supply and excess demand, which should get moderated as we move into first quarter of next year.

We do expect sulfur prices to retrace back. We have studied this trend in the past as well.

Sulfur never sustained at this price. It generally crashes to $180-$200.

We hope it happens at the earliest opportunity.

In terms of crop protection business, in terms of integrating NACL in terms of supply chain, plants, efficiencies, those sort of qualitative aspects, are we done with all those things as of now or the integration is still sort of remaining in terms of the way you want to run the NACL business?

As of now, it's a separate entity. It's being managed separately.

A lot of cost-reduction initiatives, process-improvement initiative, product introduction, product expansion, brand-building initiatives, all being steered, addressed by NACL. Our previous CPC business head has moved in as Managing Director of NACL.

To that extent, there is a synergistic thinking and approach in what we do in CPC business. It's still a work in progress.

We have addressed the liquidity part by raising money through rights issue and reduced the interest burden, brought in the working capital discipline, and also brought down the interest rates on working capital. I think we are on the right track, but still it is a work in progress.

It will play out in the coming quarters.

For a standalone business, mancozeb has done phenomenal for us over years and also in recent past. Can you explain what explains such bullishness from your side in terms of mancozeb for expanding capacity further after the one round has already been done?

Is it terms of sort of a demand-supply mismatch we are seeing? What presents an opportunity to scale up further in mancozeb?

Good question. There has been a additional spray in key crops like soybean, corn in Brazil.

That has increased the demand for mancozeb in Latin American markets. Farmers' preference for wide-spectrum low-priced molecules like mancozeb has triggered a lot of interest for this molecule.

As a company, we are rightly positioned to address this demand. We are also trying to enter into long-term arrangements for securing the volumes on a long-term basis.

Also it is a wide-spectrum fungicide with least resistance and can be used in combination with various other molecules. We are also in the process of coming up with combination products and initiating registration activities in Latin America.

Currently we are doing on B2B basis, and we are trying to explore the opportunity of strengthening our presence in Latin America through B2C opportunities as well. We are trying to see how do we convert this immediate increase in mancozeb into long-term sustainable demand, especially in Latin American markets.

As Coromandel, our dependency is not only in Latin America. We are also exporting into various other countries.

Considering the increased demand for this molecule, we have started expanding capacities. We are also building a strong brand in domestic market on mancozeb family.

We are trying to work on parallely many things to ensure that this volume growth is sustainable in the coming years.

Sure. Lastly on the Senegal mine business, can you give some sort of qualitative and quantitative sort of judgement where we are in terms of the production in current quarter, and in terms of profit contribution because of the backward integration, what sort of contribution we are getting at current prices?

If you can give some comments, and also a request from my side will be to give some sense of Senegal business separately because of the depreciation and amortization of the mining business. It gets a little tough to understand the operating core business numbers.

It will be great if you can sort of have disclosures around mining business in the presentation. Yeah.

See,

while I will share the number, but what I wanted to say, mining has to be seen as a strategic investment, the valuation of which has gone up manyfold compared to the value at which we acquired. It has brought in some moderation in the price at which we buy rocks.

To that extent, now I would say it's a strategic importance for Coromandel with 20%-25% of our rock requirements are being met through our captive source, which gives us a huge advantage and reduces our dependency on other sources. First it ensures availability of key raw material for the expanded capacity, the new capacity which is coming up in Kakinada.

I would first take this as a supply security. Second, mining also helps us to understand the cost structure better and our ability to negotiate rock pricing with the rest of the sources have become far superior than what it used to be.

Third, we have scaled up the volume and stabilized the production compared to what it was. We have achieved what we said at the time of acquisition, we will do 300,000, we are achieving 350,000 tonnes in the current year.

It is value-accretive. I don't want to put the numbers for the sensitivity reason, but it definitely quite happy with the way it has played out in this year.

Going forward, we will look to increase the volume to 5 lakh tonnes, thereby ensuring sustained availability of this source for our Kakinada capacity. It is profitable.

Currently there is ex-recovery which is happening. We are taking a lot of improvement efforts to improve the recovery, and it'll be a very profitable business on a standalone basis.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for the opportunity. I had a question regarding our fertilizer volume growth.

The DBT sales data that the company gives out in the presentation, we see DAP and NPK put together sales growth was negative 1% for 9 months. During the same period, the growth for us was close to 10-odd percent.

This is both manufactured and imported put together. Could you throw some light on where is this incremental growth coming from for us?

What is your first number? What is the second number?

Negative 1 is for the company

or? Negative 1% was for the industry, the DBT sales data that we give in our presentation.

That was minus 1%. I think 199 lakh tonnes of volumes consumed both DAP and NPK put together in 9 months, which was last year.

This year it is close to 197. The same for us, say DAP, NPK imported plus the manufactured volumes, both of this put together, we did, I think, close to 36 lakh tonnes, which was close to 32 lakh tonnes, 32.88 lakh tonnes in the third quarter last year.

That's almost a 10% growth for Coromandel versus a minus 1% growth for the DBT sales for the industry.

See, you are comparing the consumption versus our primary sales. If you look at the corresponding primary sale of industry, industry also has grown by 15%.

If you look at the industry DAP, NPK sales, for the quarter if you're talking about, it has moved up from 71 lakh tonnes to 75 lakh tonnes, which is 6% growth on the primary sale, against that our primary sale for the quarter more or less remains the same, 11.4, 11.2, if you are comparing quarter. Just wanted to get the math right.

Industry has grown by 6, whereas we have maintained the same volume on a quarterly basis.

I was looking out from the 9-months perspective.

9-months perspective, industry has moved up from 190 to 220 on the primary sale, which is 15% growth, and we have grown from 32 to 36, 31.7 to 36.3, which is 14% growth. We have grown in line with industry growth.

What you are comparing is the consumption. The industry nine months has 208 lakh tonnes, remains flat.

We have grown by 1%, 33 moved to 33.4. More or less our primary sales, our consumptions are tracking in line with the industry for the nine-months period.

If you want, I can ask my colleague to send across you the data. The industry growth of primary is 16, we have grown by 14.

Industry is flatish on consumption, we have grown by 1% on consumption. That's how it is.

Got it. Okay.

All right. In your opening remarks, you mentioned something about the market share coming down from 15% to 14% for the complex, basically the phosphatic fertilizer division.

Sorry, I didn't quite catch the reason behind the fall in market share.

As I mentioned, the primary consumption for the industry has moved up by 2% for the quarter. The comment is more for the quarter.

Moved up by 2%, whereas in our case, it was degrown. That is why our market share of consumption came down from last year 15% to 14%.

This basically happened because of the slowdown in consumption in southern state, Andhra, Telangana, where there has been a significant impact on crop acreages of chillies, where the fertilizer consumption came down significantly. I said there's a drop in consumption in AP, Telangana, which has been offset by Andhra, Maharashtra, and other northern states, but still not good enough.

That is why the industry numbers are slightly higher, whereas we are at a lower level of consumption in the third quarter, mainly because of the AP, Telangana conditions.

Got it. Okay.

Thank you. That's all.

Hi. Sir, what was the subsidy EBITDA share this quarter?

Subsidy

business? EBITDA share 62%.

Okay. Second clarification, follow-up on Ahmed's question on the backward integration.

See, in sulfuric acid and phos, if I'm not wrong, roughly we are investing ₹2,100 crore in both these projects. Initial expectation was these two projects should help us roughly ₹400 crore of EBITDA benefit annually.

Given the current pricing scenario, 5%-10% here and there, but do we maintain that kind of expectation from these two projects, or should it be meaningfully deviate from the initial expectation?

It will be more or less same. I don't see any challenge because it is not only the cost of sulfur is going up.

When sulfur goes up, PA price also goes up. As far as the value addition is concerned, I don't see any major significant shift which is happening.

Plus the power generation of 24 megawatts what we talked about, that will also accrue. Our value addition is coming from, one is the value addition on manufacturing of phos acid, another one is a power generation.

The combination of these two, I don't see any major deviation compared to earlier estimates. We should be able to sustain that.

Perfect, sir. Thank you so much.

All the best.

Hi, thanks for the opportunity. Sir, can you share the revenue and EBITDA for our retail business?

We don't put this out as a separate segment, I'll be constrained to put these numbers separately.

Is it possible to share the financials of our drone subsidiary? See,

it is too insignificant this point of time, and as and when we reach the size and scale and commence operations, we'll be able to put out that number.

Lastly, when this phos acid plant comes on stream, what kind of EBITDA increase we can expect per tonne?

We talked about it, right? In fact, as against the current annual average EBITDA of ₹5,500, we said we should be able to increase it to ₹6,500 on annualized basis.

We talked about this earlier as well, and that we are just maintaining it.

On the entire capacity or only on that particular plant?

On the entire capacity, obviously.

₹6,500, you said, right, sir?

Right, correct.

Thank you very much, sir, and all the best.

Thank you.

Thanks for the opportunity. Sir, on the crop protection export segment, you indicated that there has been a good amount of volume growth as well as some pricing element.

In terms of the volumes, is there any element of restocking because of which during the last three quarters there has been material improvement as far as the export volumes are concerned? Thank you.

See, we are not such a big player to restock for Brazil. We are a very small player.

This volume growth has triggered mainly on account of mancozeb, where the application has got expanded as I mentioned in my earlier response. More driven by the demand for this molecule, which has improved the volume.

It is not a inventory stocking up, because ours is actually more for consumption and that is the phenomenon. We are not a very sizable player in Latin American market.

Sure. Second question, in terms of NACL consolidation, although we are still in mode of integrating certain elements of it, when do we see a sizable benefit coming from the integration?

Would it be from, say, Q1 FY27 onwards or maybe second half of FY27? Thank you.

The integration would be in terms of the management practices, taking advantage of the best practices what Coromandel is following. You can see that numbers are improving in NACL itself from loss-making last year to profit-making and EBITDA is getting expanded, capacity utilization is moving up.

We can see these improvements coming in from first quarter of next year.

Sure. That is helpful.

Thanks a lot and all the best.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, sir. If I have missed listening to this thing of yours, what was the DAP consumption for nine months and also for NPK?

Not in absolute terms, directionally what percentage increase or decrease?

For Q3 or nine months?

Nine months. Also for Q3, if you can mention for both these, NPK and DAP, for the industry.

Industry NPKs out there -2% compared to last year corresponding period, 52 lakh tonnes versus 50 lakh tonnes. DAP moved up by 13% from 26 to 30 lakh tonnes.

DAP was up from 26 to?

30.

30. NPK was down?

52 to 50.

Okay. This is the fertilizer consumption for nine months?

This is Q3 you asked for, right?

This is Q3?

Correct, this is Q3.

What about nine months?

Nine months is 208 lakh tonnes. Sorry?

208 lakh tonnes, both DAP and NPK put together. It's 208 lakh tonnes.

Okay. How does it compare with same time last year?

It was same. 208, yeah, flat.

It's almost same.

Okay. Both DAP and NPK were flat?

Yes.

Okay. Thank you, sir.

That's all from my side.

Thank you.

The question is with regards to the byproduct we are getting from the captive capacity. Can you give us a guidance on what margins we are making on selling those phosphogypsum that we are getting as a byproduct?

I'm not able to hear you. Can you please repeat your question?

Sir, the question is with regards to the phosphogypsum that we are producing as a byproduct. Can you give us any guidance on what margins or what realization we are making on that product?

As

we don't disclose it as a separate segment, we will not be able to get the data at this point of time.

Your earlier comments were that your payback period of this new plant is around 2 to 3 years. Do you consider this realization from this product also part of this realization?

We are not put this capex looking at gypsum realizations. Gypsum doesn't play such a significant role in the overall economics of this project.

Sir. Understood.

Thank you.

Thank you all for your continued interest in Coromandel, and thank you for joining this call today. We look forward to future interaction.

Thank you very much. Thank you, Ranjit, for organizing this call.