Morning, everyone. Can you please hear us?

Okay.

Hi, we can hear you.

Thank you.

Sorry for the inconvenience and because of the technical glitch. We'll restart again now.

Morning, everyone. This is Manish at [Nu3?]

and we are welcoming you on FY '27 earnings call of Gujarat Pipavav Port Limited. We have Girish Aggarwal, Managing Director, and Santosh Breed, CFO.

Girish will start with the opening remarks, the financial performance of the company and view of the business, and then we'll open the floor for Q&A. Over to you, Girish.

Thank you, Manish. The company delivered a strong financial performance this quarter year on year.

Revenue for the quarter was higher by 33%, EBITDA was higher by 45% with margins at 64%, EBIT was higher by 58%, and net profit was higher by 46%. This includes duty benefit scrips that of FY 15-16, 16-17, totally at 31.6 crores.

Excluding this, the underlying performance, revenue was higher for the quarter by 20%, EBITDA was higher by 25% with margins at 61%, which is a 200 basis points expansion, EBIT was higher by 31%, and net profit was higher by 24%. In terms of volumes, containers were up by 3%.

This is in spite of the Middle East conflict. Ro-Ro was up by 53%.

Dry bulk was down by 7%, largely minerals, and liquids way was down by 47% with a significant 63% decline in LPG volumes. In terms of overall financial year outlook, we now are looking at an overall EBIT growth between 20 and 24% year on year.

Ro-Ro is expected to have a volume of about 260 to 270,000 cars. Liquids is expected between 1.3 million to 1.4 million metric tons.

Bulk is expected between 2.4 to 2.6 million metric tons, and containers is expected to have a 4 to 5% increase at approximately 700,000 TEUs. I will pause here and then answer any questions that you may have.

Thanks, Girish. The floor is open for Q&A.

Aditya, please go ahead with your questions.

Hi. Good morning, management.

Thank you very much for the guidance over here. Could you please repeat the guidance again, because you were a little fast and it's very difficult to grasp over the line?

EBIT growth of 20 to 24%, containers approximately 700,000 TEUs, about a 4 to 5% increase, Ro-Ro at 260 to 270,000 cars, liquid between 1.3 to 1.4 million metric tons, and bulk between 2.4 to 2.6 million metric

tons. Thank you very much.

Now coming back to the container performance, right? I recall that during the last call, you had guided somewhere around 5 to 7% growth during the first quarter.

Volumes did grow by about 3%, but just wanted to understand where was the gap and do you think that the new service which is coming through from the July quarter, and also what is the situation with respect to normalization of services? Any comments around that would be helpful with respect to the container cargoes.

Then I'll move on to the other questions.

Container essentially, it's been a difficult quarter with the Middle East conflict. We have one service, Shaheen, which is a Middle East service between us and Jebel Ali, which has remained suspended so far.

We are now assuming it'll remain suspended for the full financial year or the remainder of the year, and that is a substantial 70 to 80,000 TEU kind of volume that we will lose this year because of Shaheen. What has helped is the growth from the new service which started towards the end of June.

We believe, of course, the full-year impact will be in the next nine quarters. FI2, this is a Maersk service.

What we've also done now is multiple opportunities of transshipment that are available. We're going in and we've captured some of that proactively, and we expect that to kind of stay with us for at least the next 3 to 4 months, and then we'll see how that progresses.

Overall, the guidance is still around 4 to 5% growth on the container volume for the financial year.

Okay. For this FI2 service with Maersk which has started from the end-June, what is the contribution of this particular service if there's some information available on that?

It's early days, right? It's about four calls that have happened so far.

Usually the services start small and then they start to grow. I would expect that, not Shaheen will be gone for 12 months and assuming 9 months of this, but like-to-like basis it will eventually turn out to be similar to Shaheen volume on a weekly basis.

Okay. Okay.

With respect to the gas outlook, right? Now 1.3 to 1.4 is somewhere about 8-odd percent decline year on year.

Now this implies that there's sequential improvement during the rest of the quarters compared to where we were in the first quarter. What are the trends which you have seen so far in July and middle of August?

If you could allude to how the second quarter is performing with respect to liquid particularly, and if you can, about the rest of the cargoes as well?

No, I will not comment on how we are doing from our overall volume perspective. I can give you overall guidance.

Roughly a 0.3 million decline over last year's 1.6 gives us a overall decline of about 18%, right? We expect a 15 to 20% decline in volumes on the overall liquid side.

The first quarter is difficult, but now LPG is started to come from the US. We do expect some catch-up happening in the remainder of the year.

Okay. Okay.

If Santosh can help us with the realizations, because it seems that on a like-for-like basis, excluding the script for the duty reversals, right, the realizations seem to be on the higher side. If you could run us through the typical numbers which you help us with, right, that would be insightful.

Sure,

sure. The realization for container is around ₹9,500 to ₹10,000 per TEU.

Now this change which has happened as compared to the previous quarter, driven mainly by two things: one, of course, the favorable exchange rate benefiting in this quarter, and second is the tariff increase what we had taken in January. Some of those have started materializing based on the contractual arrangement with the customers from this quarter.

Those two are the key reasons for the change in the realization. Having said this, what you see in the numbers are substantially higher.

One is the SEIS or the duty scrips what we have mentioned, but apart from that we also had some one-offs on the provisions reversal, as well as the ad hoc opportunities what we got for transshipment volumes. The storage revenue on those also helped us to push the revenue up.

That one-off also sitting in this number, that's why you see the realization on the higher side.

Okay. For the bulk liquid, is it the same run rate as what we saw last quarter, or are you seeing--

That's right. That's right.

Bulk remains at ₹650 to ₹750 per metric ton, and liquid remains at ₹650 to sorry, liquid is bit better owing to the cargo mix for this quarter, around ₹650 to ₹700 per metric ton. Okay.

Okay. That's very helpful.

Girish and Santosh, both of you, we have been seeing lot of news flow about containers being backlogged in most ports in India, be it Mundra, be it Nhava Sheva, right? There are even reports of carriers having to skip calls because they cannot load or offload because of the excessive waiting times.

If you could help us understand what kind of congestions if at all there are any in your port, and if there's no congestion or if it is a manageable level, are you seeing an opportunity to capture ad hoc calls because your peers are unable to handle those vessels?

No, currently there no congestions in Pipavav. Monsoon of course always remains, at times is difficult.

In general, our port is fully functional, no berthing delays largely for any vessels, which is the situation. That's why I said, in spite of the fact that we are going to lose Shaheen, we are aggressively looking at tapping opportunities of transshipment, which we've done this quarter.

We see that continuing to happen. Yes, so that's going to happen.

It is also, of course, subject to the draft and the vessel requirements, etc.

Okay. Is it fair to conclude that you might get some opportunities because

your peers-- We are already getting. We are already getting.

You are already getting that. Okay.

Okay. That makes sense.

The standard question with respect to the concession, any developments since we last spoke 3 months back?

I think things are progressing positively with the Gujarat Maritime Board. Again, there no red flags, also nothing further to report where we are today vis-à-vis 3 months back.

I will be coming back to you as soon as if we have something from the GMB, but things moving in the right direction.

Thank you. My last question is, what are the capex outlay for this year if you could help us understand that?

Any changes since we last spoke? If you can put a number to what you expect the capex to be for this year, including the expansion which you're doing in the liquid jetty?

No major changes as what we spoke from last, but we expect around close to around 200 cr to be spent. Again, major spend is happening on the liquid jetty what we're going to commission this financial year.

Okay. Thank you, gentlemen, and good luck with the recovery in liquids and containers.

Thank you.

Thank you. Mr.

Rajiv Rupani, please go ahead.

Yes, sir. Thank you for the opportunity.

This is my first call, and I'm new to the company. I have a follow-up question on the concession agreement.

You have said that the talks are progressing well. When do we come to know because our concession agreement expires in September '28, we will come to know in the year 2028 only, or 1 year before, or what?

This is my first question.

It's difficult to answer that question. It entirely depends on the Gujarat Maritime Board and government of Gujarat.

I can confirm as soon as we get to hear, we will disclose it.

Okay. My next was a follow-up question.

Once we get the approval, right, you have mentioned that a parent APM will invest about 17,000 crores for expansion. This total investment will be made by the parent only or GPPL will make investments?

Could you clarify?

It's a GPPL investment.

The whole investment will be made by GPPL?

Yes.

Okay. Could you also guide us how much will be invested in phases, and how much time will it take?

What will be our capacity afterwards? Some brief idea, please?

To give that brief idea today, Rajiv-ji, it is not possible. There's a lot of things that will go before we get to that discussion.

I think the overall contours of 17,000 crore are broadly known, but we're still working with our master plan, business plan. We will discuss this with Gujarat Maritime Board whenever they want us to have that discussion, agree with them, and then come back, right?

At this point in time, it is very premature.

Okay. My next question was this capex for the liquid cargo and our capacity is going from 2 million metric tons to 5 million.

When does it get complete, and how much will it add to our revenues approximately?

Current closure is March 2027. No impact this financial year.

Then it will progressively grow. I don't have ready information to give you in terms of what's the revenue additive in '27-'28.

Are you looking at '27-'28 or--

Yeah, '27-'28 approximately.

That we can get back to you separately.

Okay. What will be the capacity utilization you expect of this 5 million metric tons approximately once it's complete?

This will be phased over a period of time, right, in terms of growth, right? Not the entire thing will come.

We will not fill the jetty up immediately as it gets commissioned, right? It will progressively improve, but we expect over the next 3 years we should be back to 3 to 4 years, we should be back to full.

Thank you. Thank you.

That's it from us.

Thank you. Nilotpal, please go ahead with your questions.

Hi, sir. Good morning and congratulations on a great set of numbers.

Just wanted to harp on this additional revenue that we have secured aside of the duty scrips. These one-off provisions and ad hoc opportunities, can you quantify approximately how much did they contribute additionally to the revenue?

Secondly, is that something we should assume at a sustainable rate for the year?

These are very ad hoc, right? These are not something which you can say sustainable.

The opportunities will keep on coming on transshipment and then, of course, we will use those opportunities and we will have some additional revenue, but it's difficult to quantify what those revenues will be. Even on the provisions, again, these are one-offs, I would not really like to quantify anything on that front as well.

Right.

Just a clarification. Are realizations on the transshipment volumes compared to non-transshipment would be lower, or

how

does the mix work if they are lower?

They're lower. However, what is also happening and there was this question also on the congestion, etc., in the other ports.

It comes with additional storage, even a lot of these transshipment is also reefer, so that also comes with additional charges. In general, I think there's not too much of a difference, at least what we saw this quarter.

Let's see how that goes the next quarter.

Got it, sir. My second question was with respect to this Kandla-Gorakhpur pipeline.

Is that's per now complete, or the last call I think you mentioned around 8-odd kilometers was pending?

Yeah, 7-odd kilometers is We are now expecting October this year. That's the current timeline that I have.

All right, sir. Those were my questions.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Mr. Rajiv Rupani, you have some more questions?

You have your hand raised.

A follow-up question. What will be the dividend policy going forward, since--

Sorry. The board will decide the dividend policy.

As of now, there's no change to our policy. As and when the board decides a change, we would communicate that.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you. Mr.

Parimal Mithani, please go ahead with your questions.

Can you hear me?

Please go ahead.

Yeah. Sir, recently the parent has made a lot of statements regarding Indian markets and is there any thought process How do you see your business over next 3 to 4 years?

Is there any--

Sorry, what were you talking about the parent? I'm sorry, you're not very clear.

AP Moller has made a substantial commitment about the Indian growth prospects and about investments in Indian in terms of ports and all. Is there any guidelines in how do you see a business going for next 3 to 4 years from here, sir?

No, no. The guidance given by AP Moller I cannot comment.

I can only comment from a GPPL matter perspective. If you're saying what is the GPPL's outlook for the next 3, 4 years, is that how I should see your question?

Yes, sir.

Yeah. I think, of course, a lot is dependent on the concession extension.

Hence we do not go out and give our overall guidance for the next 3 to 5 years. The right thing would be that we secure the concession and then we anyway which way come back to what we plan to do.

There were a lot of questions about the investment, etc., etc. As the business plan unfolds, then we can talk about it.

It's again, as I said, a little premature. Let the concession thing get closed out first.

Okay. Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you. Any questions from anybody else?

Yes, Kaundinya, please go ahead with your questions.

Hi, sir. Thanks for the opportunity.

Couple of questions. Firstly, on the realization side, right, even bulk looks slightly high if I understood the numbers, ₹650 to ₹750.

Is it anything that we should know

there? Sorry, the question is on bulk realization?

Yeah.

As I mentioned earlier, the realizations have been maintained, there is no impact to the realization. The changes what you see is mainly with the cargo mix that is being handled.

Understood, sir. Sir, secondly, on the concession agreement, what is the kind of conversation that is happening with the Maritime Board?

Is it that they'll call for a bidding and then there'll be a RoFR kind of thing, or is it some methodology that is being discussed, or is it a one-on-one negotiation? What are the options that are happening there?

That cannot be discussed here, Kaundinya. I think it is safe to say that we are progressing well with our discussions with Gujarat Maritime Board, and anything that comes up we will then disclose.

At this point in time, there is nothing to disclose, neither there is any red flag that we are at least at the management level worried about.

Sir. Good to hear that.

Thank you very much and all the best.

Thank you. Isha Agarwal, please go ahead.

Yes, sir. Hi.

Hi. I just had one question on the bulk side of the business, sir.

In the last concall, we had a guidance of a decline of 8 to 10%, while we see actually that we have seen a 15% rise in the bulk side of the business, which is entirely led by the minerals and other, while the fertilizers stayed flat. My question would be, is it because of coal?

Was coal the primary driver of it, or was it iron ore, cement, or steel if you could just put some light on this?

No, no, no. I think I don't know what numbers you're talking about, but just from a numbers perspective, there is a 7% decline in the total dry bulk volume, April-June '25 versus April-June '26, which has a 2% decline on fertilizer, largely flatish.

When we spoke last time, I think the government came out with additional tenders and there is a strong push from the government to increase the fertilizer in the monsoon season, and that is something that we're seeing. The large decline that we see in dry bulk is essentially owing to limestone decline, which again also comes out of the Hormuz.

Sir. That works.

Thank you so much.

Thank you. Nilotpal, please go ahead with your questions.

Hi, sir. Just a follow-up on this SEIS income front.

Are there any more claims, any more amounts that we have claimed and could potentially receive over due course of time?

We have one one scrip which is still pending. That's not a substantial amount, it is one of one now for last financial year, nothing major coming now.

All right, sir. Has this been paid out in cash as well, or this is something that has been accepted and not credited by the government yet?

No, these are duty scrips which are tradeable. You can go and monetize it in the market, which has been done.

Understood. Thank you, sir.

Thank you. Any follow-up questions with anyone else?

Any last questions? Yes, Karthik, please go ahead.

Just to understand the realizations part a bit better, can you highlight other factors that are supporting this about 20, 25% increase in YoY realizations on a per TEU basis, what's the difference? Some more color on how much of this we should build in for the upcoming quarters?

As I mentioned earlier, right, if I look at container, for container realization we take per TEU, and that has changed from ₹9,500 to ₹10,000 as compared to the previous quarter, an increase. This increase is mainly coming because of one, we had taken tariff increase in January for some of the contracts which were effective April.

That increase got implemented in April, and also because of favorable exchange rate as our container tariff is in dollars. That is helping to improve this realization.

Non-container, more or less, it remains as is. No major changes in the non-container realization.

I also don't see any major change happening in the coming quarter as well, because the tariff increase now has been taken in and has been built into these numbers.

Can you just help us separate whatever the one-offs are in terms of just simply analyzing how much of this realization YoY increase is coming from the structural factors and the mix, and whatever is coming from the one-off settlement? No,

we don't really quantify the one-offs, but on a very higher level, just for lines, right, on the total revenue, excluding the SEIS, you can say around 5% is the impact.

Thank you so much. That's all from my side.

Thank you. Srikant, please go ahead with your questions.

Srikant, can you hear us? Please go ahead with your questions.

Maybe Deepak, you can go ahead.

Hi, are you able to hear me?

Yeah.

Good. Given that the revenue mix has changed over the past couple of years with liquids and Ro-Ro coming back on stream, right, and container being flattish or slightly declining versus couple of years ago, could you help us remind what is the US dollar exposure in terms of your revenues, what contribution it is for the overall revenues?

Almost 60 to 65% of the top line is from container business, right, and that container business is in US dollars. The rest, dry bulk contracts, handling contract, everything is in local currency.

Liquids, Ro-Ro are all in local currencies?

That's right.

Thank you very much. That's very helpful.

That's it from me.

Thank you. Any more questions from anyone?

Doesn't seem to be the case.

Sorry, Yubisha, please go ahead.

Hi. Just one follow-up question on the liquid jetty.

For the past few quarters, we have been continuously seeing a decline on the liquid side of the business, although it was all guided, but we're also coming up with the liquid jetty. Do we already have some customers or contracts signed, any guidance on that, because then the kind of guidance that we have for the year-end, for that we'll have to cover up a lot?

Do we have any guidance on that?

Yubisha, are you saying liquid volumes are declining every quarter?

Just one sec. We've been seeing a decline in the liquid side of the business, if I'm correct.

That's not really how we see it, Yubisha. Fundamentally, the liquids have grown over the last 3 years from a little less than 1 million metric tons to last year, financial year, 1.6 million metric tons, so that's sort of a 60% growth over the last 3 years.

This quarter, there are minor variations quarter on quarter, 417 to 388 to 404 to 383, which is part and parcel of the business. Fundamentally, if you look at liquids business has steadily grown and we sort of topped our capacities, and that's the rationale why we went ahead with the additional jetty as our customers continue to ask for more volume.

Yes, this quarter has been a fundamental decline, but that's because of the Middle East conflict. We do see now some parts of the LPG now coming back through the US channels.

Let's see how that develops. Aegis is also busy commissioning their ammonia 36,000 metric ton ammonia tank, which we expect to start work sometimes in September, October, so that will add additional volume and additional liquid stream to the Pipavav port.

We do see continuous improvement and growth on the liquid side from a fundamental business perspective.

Right, sir. That really helps.

Thank you so much.

Thank you. Aditya, please go ahead with your questions.

Apologies for repeating something over here if you're coming late on the call. That being said, just some clarification.

When you say that you will see the Middle Eastern line remaining closed, the Shaheen one remaining closed for the remainder of the year, why would that be the case, and is there a risk that it never comes back next year?

Sorry, this is an assumption we've made. We haven't seen Shaheen coming back since March.

March till now, we are ending August. We don't see it in September as well.

At this point in time, we have made that assumption that the conflict may continue for a little longer period of time and hence Shaheen will not come back. Of course, if Hormuz opens up, it is highly possible that it will come back again in its same shape and form.

Definitely possible, but that's the assumption when we are giving the guidance.

Understood. How much will you end up gaining once the scenario on this Middle Eastern line normalizes and you've added the new line that you had to add on aggregate basis on these two things?

How much will depend entirely on when it starts, if it starts. There are just so many questions.

It's best from a prudence perspective to assume at this point in time is we do not see it coming in the financial year. When it starts, of course, we'll come back and talk about it.

Understood. On the liquids front, where you are and where you can be versus your capacity expansion, you've said gap is 100.

What is the visibility that you have today from customers already, and how many more customers do you need to fulfill that gap in some sense of the timeline, sir? No,

there's no point talking about at a customer level. In general, if you look at India, in general, if you look at the growth, in general, if you look at how much LPG is imported into India and what it will be imported as we keep moving forward, putting up the ammonia tankages, etc., we believe we would be needing additional jetty, and that is why we build the additional jetty, which also is fully VLGC-compliant.

I would argue that this 3 million we would fill over 3 to 5 years.

Understood. Those were my two questions.

Thank you, and best of luck.

Thank you. Mr.

Rajiv Rupani, please go ahead.

Yes, sir. I have a follow-up question.

The Ro-Ro units have scaled up well from 42,000 units to 65,000 units. What kind of volumes you see over next let's say after 2 to 3 years?

How much can this scale up further? Thank you.

The guidance for this year we have already given. We do not give guidance beyond this, at least at this point in time.

A lot will depend on concession extension. I've already given a guidance for 260 to 270,000 cars for this financial year, and we'll stick to that.

Thank you.

Thank you. Nilotpal, you have another follow-up question?

Sorry, sir. I missed a figure of where you mentioned that on an underlying basis, your total realization growth ex-SEIS should be, did you say 5% around?

That's right. On the overall revenue basis, what I mentioned was that because the question was impact of these one-offs on the revenue, so that's why I tried to give a high-level quantification of the total revenue, what we see roughly around 5%.

So 5% would be the underlying realization growth, or 5% is the total quantum of the one-off?

Is quantum of the one-off.

Got it. Thank you.

Mr. Mohit Poddar, please go ahead.

Hello.

Please go ahead with your question.

Hi, is [unclear]

Sorry, your line is not clear, Mohit.

Is [unclear]

Sorry, Mohit, we can't hear you.

Can't hear you, Mohit.

Aditya, please go ahead with your question.

Just a follow-up question. As in, your margins have been steady at 60% if I take SEIS out, and obviously there are one-offs in the revenue, somewhere the costs also have gone up meaningfully.

Our sense is that this other expense item is now looking fairly vivid. Could you give us a sense of what is driving the growth in other expenses, and what should we expect incrementally if there are any one-offs on

the expense side? In other expense, of course, in a current quarter, some additional CSR expense which was done as compared to previous quarter, and we also had made some provisions which has resulted in this increase.

Apart from this, there's no major change as such in other expenses. Otherwise, everything is as per the business, this variation you see depend on what activity we have taken.

We have taken some activity for repairs and maintenance this quarter. Those variations will be there, but no significant increase in cost as such.

This mainly the quarterly variations.

Understood. If I have to put it simply, your ability to maintain and go beyond 60% margins as things normalize, SEIS goes out, and we're seeing operation numbers is pretty much there.

That does not change.

Yes.

Got that. Thank you.

That will be the only question from my side.

Thank you. Kaundinya, please go ahead.

Hi, sir. Thanks for the follow-up.

Just one question. I think couple of quarters back, if I recollect it correctly, you spoke of some dredging-related activity which you need to incur.

Can you please remind us on what is it about, and then is it still on, and therefore, what is that cost that you may need to incur for it?

You're saying dredging, is it?

Yeah.

Dredging cost for?

I think you spoke that you may need to incur some dredging-related expenses in FY '27 or '28 if I recollect correctly about a couple of quarters back. I'm just trying to understand is that on, or is it something currently underway, or is it something that we need to incur if you can help me understand that?

I'm clear. Did we talk about capital dredging?

Did we talk about maintenance dredging?

Maintenance, I think.

Maintenance dredging is difficult to say. This is an evaluation that we do every year, and based on the evaluation that comes out, we then take the dredging activity if needed.

Understood, sir. Any capital dredging activity is planned, sir?

We've just done it for the liquid jetty.

Understood, sir. Thank you very much.

That's it from my side.

Thank you. Any last questions from anyone?

Seem to be the case. Thank you very much for joining, and have a good day.

Thank you. Appreciate it.

Thank you very much.