Yeah. Can you hear me?

This is Navin here. Good evening, everyone.

On behalf of ICICI Securities, I welcome you all to the Q2 FY 2027 earnings call of Shree Cement Limited. On the call from the management, we have with us Mr.

Neeraj Akhoury, Managing Director; Mr. Subhash Jajoo, CFO; Mr.

Khandelwal, Company Secretary; and also Mr. Jain, Joint President Finance.

Without any further ado, I hand over the call to the management for their opening comments. Over to you, sir.

Thank you, Navin. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Shree Cement Limited's earning call for the quarter ended 30th September '26.

Before we begin, I want all of us to remember Mr. Ashok Bhandari, our special advisor.

He passed away suddenly two days after our Q1 results call. Many of you know him from these calls.

He earned the trust of the investor community. During his tenure, the market cap of Shree Cement grew significantly.

At work, I will still remember him as a person who was firm and direct. With people, he was warm and cared.

His passing is real loss for Shree Cement and for everyone who worked with him. We will miss him.

We miss him every time. Our condolences are with his family.

May his soul rest in peace. Going into our quarterly performance, the second quarter is usually a softer quarter for the cement industry.

This year, it was also affected by the conflict in West Asia and by a weak monsoon in most regions. The East was an exception.

Against this backdrop, our focus on volumes continued to deliver results. India sales volumes increased by approximately 18% year-on-year, from 7.91 million tonnes to 9.31 million tonnes.

Realizations improved marginally by 1%, from Rs 4,840 per tonne to Rs 4,870 per tonne. Consol EBITDA rose by about 4%, from 974 crore to 1,016 crore.

However, consolidated EBITDA per tonne declined to Rs 966 from Rs 1,055 a year ago, primarily due to a higher fuel cost. Consol sales volumes also grew by about 14%, from 9.23 million tonnes to 10.52 million tonnes.

This improvement in volumes was also supported better capacity utilization in our India operations, which increased to 56% compared to 52% in the corresponding quarter last year. On a sequential basis, against the first quarter, the numbers are lower, which is what this season usually brings.

India volume fell 11%, from 10.49 million tonnes to 9.31 million tonnes. Realization was 1% lower at Rs 4,870 against Rs 4,919.

Consol EBITDA declined from Rs 1,272 crores to 1,016 crores, while EBITDA per tonne moved to Rs 966 from 1,111. Consol sales volumes were down by 8%, from 11.45 million tonnes to 10.52 million tonnes.

Our capacity expansion program continues to progress. In September '26, Union Cement Company, our step-down subsidiary in the United Arab Emirates, commissioned a new cement mill with an annual capacity of 3 million tonnes.

This takes its total cement production capacity to 7 million tonnes per annum. In India, work is progressing on our greenfield integrated plant in Meghalaya, which is expected to be commissioned in the quarter ending 31st March 2028.

We continue to evaluate and pursue strategic organic expansion opportunities across our markets, with a focus on building capacity and delivering our long-term growth objectives. Few words on ready-mix concrete business.

Our ready-mix concrete continues to grow, and is continued to grow in last quarter also. The commercial network is now 28 plants; with captive units, the total is 35 plants.

The plants which had been running longer did quite well, and the new ones are ramping up. Volume rose 153%, 123% year-on-year, to 2.73 lakh cubic meter.

Revenue rose 182% to 129 crores. The business stayed EBITDA positive.

As each plant fills up, its fixed cost is spread over more cubic meters, and that shows in the numbers. We have said for some years that ready-mix is where cement in India is heading.

This quarter is a small step in that direction. As you all know, sustainability remains an integral part of our operating strategy.

In Q2 FY 2027, green electricity accounted for 65.2% of total electricity consumption, including our wholly owned subsidiaries in India. I believe this are amongst one of the highest levels in the Indian cement industry, if not the global cement industry.

Our green power generation capacity currently stands at 667 megawatts, including our wholly owned subsidiary in India, and we are progressing additional projects to further increase the share of green power in our energy mix. For us, saving energy and saving cost are the same work.

Every unit of green power we add makes per tonne cleaner, and not only cleaner, cheaper to produce. All our manufacturing locations operate on a zero liquid discharge basis, treating, recycling, and reusing 100% of the wastewater generated by our operations.

These initiatives helped us to achieve a water positivity index of more than 8 times in FY 2025-26. We remain committed to sustaining and improving this performance in the current financial year.

October month is also the month of our great leader, Mahatma Gandhi, who had very aptly said, "To destroy something is easy. To build requires great skill and care."

This thought resonates strongly with our business. Building a sustainable enterprise requires the same discipline and care, not only in the quality of our product, but also in how we serve our customers, invest for the future, and contribute to nation building.

In terms of the outlook, India economy remains supportive. Infrastructure investment, urbanization, and stable macroeconomic conditions are all helping.

A weak monsoon may hold back rural demand for some time, but spending on road, railways, housing, and data center continues, and that will keep India cement demand moving in a positive direction. We remain focused on strengthening our market positions, improving operational efficiency, and executing our growth plans while navigating the near-term pressures facing the industry.

With these remarks, I now hand over the mic to our colleague, Mr. Subhash Jajoo, Mr.

K.K. Jain, and Mr.

S.S. Khandelwal for your questions.

I am very confident that you are in good hands, and since we are in a cement business, we'll try to make sure this discussions do not set very quickly and that your questions are well answered. Thank you, Navin.

We can now open the Q&A.

Hi, sir. Sir, I just wanted to get a sense on fuel cost.

What was our landed fuel cost on kcal basis, and how do we see this going ahead into Q3 and Q4?

For the current quarter, the landed cost was Rs 2.09 as against 1.66 last year and 1.95 for the June quarter. For the coming quarter, we believe this will be around Rs 2.15 to Rs 2.20.

Okay. Sir, my next question is on raw material cost.

There is a swing in basically change in inventory which is of around 100 crores, and this number was 69 crores even in Q1. What is this related to, and how should we see this in H2?

This quarter, our clinker production is higher by say 36% as compared to the September 2025. We hope that the demand would be good in the next two quarters, it will be consumed.

Okay. Sir, what would be the sustainable number going ahead?

By year-end it should be around 60 to 70 crore rupees.

Okay. Those were my questions.

Thank you so much.

Sir, I have three quick questions. My first is there was very strong volume growth in first quarter and second quarter of 17%.

Now as we move into the second half, what is the volume growth that you expect the company to see?

As I said, the demand triggers are strong. There is only one topic which is concerning is the weak monsoon.

Other than that, we are seeing demand to be supportive in infrastructure, in railways, in data centers, and many other segments. Last quarter, there are different figures, we still have to assess, but looks like the demand growth in India was for the industry was about 10%.

Other estimates are about 7%, let's say 7% to 10% was the demand growth, we'll get more real pictures sometime soon. If this trend continues, then what we have promised you all that our growth will be slightly better than the industry.

If demand growth is around 7% in the next two quarters, we should grow a little better than them. At this moment, any forecast beyond that is difficult to give, but we remain confident that we should be able to deliver slightly better numbers than the industry growth.

Got it. My second question, sir, is there are a lot of moving parts on costs, right?

The company gave some color on coal, but overall between packaging, other variable costs, freight, on a consolidated cost outlook, how should we see second half versus Q2? Because there'll also be benefits of operating leverage in terms of higher volumes.

This one is a difficult one to say. What we do know that our one of the major cost drivers, which is the fuel, we should be able to forecast it based on the kind of purchases that we have already done, which is what our CFO, Mr.

Subhash Jajoo, spoke about. There are other elements of the cost where things are moving rapidly.

For example, the bag cost, today it is not a matter of worry, but we do not know what will happen in future. I think any cost line which is external to us is difficult to forecast.

Having said that, my sense is that quarter three for cost should not be very different than what we have seen in quarter two.

Got it, sir. My last question is on cement pricing.

Companies which have reported so far have indicated a 20 to Rs 25 bag price increase in markets in North and East. From your vantage point, are you seeing similar price hikes in October or end-September versus Q2 average?

Do you think that price increases should be able to offset the cost inflation we saw in Q2 and probably see in Q3?

Far, we have seen better prices. October is better than September, for example, right?

Again, price is purely a function of demand and supply. We have to see how it evolves in the coming quarter.

With the internal actions that we have taken, especially of premium percentages, I feel we should be able to deliver a better price than what we saw in Q2.

Got it. Thank you very much, sir.

Just on the cost of production for cement roughly what was the actually on a sequential basis?

The blended cost of production is 4,666 per ton for this quarter against June 4,329 and against September 25 it is 4,245. 4,600

how much?

4,666.

Can we get just cement cost to production? Cement data means

pure cement data is not available. We will give you later.

Got it. How much was the capital expenditure in the first half?

The capex is 895 for the first half, and we expect in the second half it would be around 700 to 800 crore.

What would be our consolidated net cash at the moment?

At the group level consolidated is 8,168 crore.

8,168?

Right.

Just last two questions. In the last quarter, you had said that 40 million tonnes is doable for the year.

I would imagine that is still the case, 40 million or more the second half despite the concerns on the monsoon?

Raashi, as we said, we should be between 40 to 41 million tonnes. If you all are wishing us so much, then most probably we will be able to reach up to 41 million tonnes.

Just one question, what tax rate should we take for the year?

The tax rate is coming around say 32% for the quarter and almost same at the half year also, 31%, and you should assume that it will be between 31% to 32% for the year also. Got it.

Thank you.

Raashi, we continues to remain in the old tax regime and that's why the rate is around 30%.

Understand.

I'll join the queue. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Congratulations.

I have just one question about what kind of action you have taken on using the EVs for your mining operation, as well as transportation of your cement or clinker?

Is it renewable, means say, for the mining and this? No,

no.

RE? No,

no, not RE. Basically, your mining equipment, whether those are still run on diesel, or you are converting to the electric-operated equipment, that is on the mining side.

We are experimenting with EV in the mining equipments. It is too initial a phase.

It's a testing period for us, yeah, of how does this equipment perform. Historically, all of us have always used equipments with traditional fuel.

EV, we have started, and give us few more quarters before we give you some kind of a stronger response on how the performance is.

About your transportation of clinker or cement, are you using the EV trucks?

We are trying to introduce EVs everywhere, not only in mining, but also in our clinker transportation. We are also testing with cement transportation.

As I said, this is the first phase of this activity. We are still evaluating how complex it is to manage and what are the real returns on this investment.

Give us few more quarters, and we should be able to tell you our longer-term plans around EVs and both in mines as well as road movement.

On the same line, whether any in any of your plant to optimize the use of renewable, whether you have installed the BESS, battery energy storage?

I am not able to understand the question, I'm sorry.

80

megawatt. The renewable power, as I said, we are

putting up

about how much?

80 megawatt

now new. Currently, we have at 667 667 megawatts, we are putting up 80 more.

No, my question is whether have you installed any

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity, sir.

I have two questions. Firstly, in terms of volume growth which is at around 18%, can you give us some regional mix because as we understand that there was some volume pressure in the eastern region, it would be helpful if you give some regional mix?

Also, how has been the growth in the trade and non-trade segment, both?

On regional mix, large part of Shree volume comes from north, yeah, and balance is equally mixed in east and south. Of course, when we say north, a part of that material also flows into states like MP or Gujarat, which is not really north for the industry, it is more west and central for the industry.

Having said that, our growth is kind of very balanced across. We have grown a little stronger in south India, followed by north, and then by the east.

However, it's something that we monitor very closely. It is kind of equally balanced across regions, and as I said, south leads it, followed by north and then by the east.

Secondly, sir, channel feedback also suggest that we are trying to withdraw from some of the markets which are not remunerative or lesser remunerative compared to other markets. If that is true, then can you throw some light on what type of actions are being taken to improve profitability?

This is totally untrue. In fact, we are trying to increase our penetration across markets.

For example, now we are a significant player in Jammu Kashmir. We are a player now, a significant player also in Gujarat.

We are also making our first presence in parts of south Karnataka. It is not true that we are withdrawing from markets, in fact, we are increasing our penetration.

Okay. Thank you so much.

Hi. Good evening, and thanks for the opportunity.

Sir, just in the quarter, what was the trade, non-trade mix? I just missed that data.

Trade, non-trade, we have done better on non-trade. We are now 61% is trade and balance is non-trade.

61% trade.

61?

Yeah.

Okay. Because if I put that number, then essentially I get a flat YoY volume on trade from you and non-trade obviously is a big jump of 50-52%, is that correct?

No, trade has also grown. No, that is not true, trade has also grown.

No,

based on the data which was shared last year Q2.

I'll ask Mr. Jajoo to send you the breakup, yeah.

Okay. Also generally on the pricing, typically we have seen strong hikes being taken in the last couple of weeks.

Does that kind of change your outlook on the way you kind of two volumes in trade, non-trade? Because last few quarters at least, you've been doing stronger volumes on the non-trade side, as you yourself have admitted.

That is one. Secondly, I think in the previous call, it was also said that because of the change in fuel mix also, you've been forced to do more non-trade.

Is that continue to be an issue for you, or you have kind of gotten over that problem?

Non-trade and trade realization gaps are somewhat coming down, yeah. Having said that, at Shree, we are actively looking at participating in some of the nation's core projects, which is why you are seeing increase in non-trade.

It in no way means that we are not pushing trade equally hard or even harder. Trade has been our bread and butter, trade, we will be pushing, yeah.

Non-trade, the nature of market is also changing with large institutional buyers, large infrastructural projects, railway projects, and so on. We are seeing this kind of a shift, yeah.

Got it. Also, could you share your fuel mix as of now?

Amit, fuel mix for this quarter: petcoke was almost 11%, imported coal was 75%, 2% Indian coal, and alternatives were 12%. We have gradually reduced the use of petcoke because of the increased prices.

Last year, the same was almost 66%, it has come down to 11%, and coal we have started using.

Got it, sure. Thanks a lot.

I'll come back in the queue.

Thanks for the opportunity, and congratulations on fairly strong volume growth. Sir, I just wanted to check, sir, our freight costs seem to have come down significantly, and if I sort of try to calculate them on a per-tonne basis, they are significantly lower on a consolidated basis.

Sir, can you just tell me why this is so?

Quarter two quarter two has two, three all things happening together. One is our distance run to market has come down.

Second is that this is a period where we get some special discounts from railways as part of the lean season discounts. Third is that we are having some new processes where freight fixation is now a little more database, using some modern tools, which is allowing us to correct a lot of freights across across markets.

All these three steps have allowed have given us an opportunity to reduce our freight to this levels. As I said, this is something we have to see how for how it is how we can stabilize it over a period of a long a longer period.

This this one quarter does not say much as this could be also because demand was good, but as we as we progress, we will see how it is this freight cost is has been we are able to retain, yeah.

There are no one-offs in this number, is that understanding correct?

No, there is no one-off. No, there is no one-off, there is no one-off, yeah.

Understood. Sir, secondly, we've been hearing that Yeah.

Yes, we will be on the lookout for the number in the coming quarter, sir. Sir, there have been some sort of news that our Meghalaya plant is sort of facing certain protests on the ground.

Sir, what is the latest update on that, sir?

There was kind of a hearing by the state authorities, in which various people who were supporting the projects also participated, and some who have an issue with this project also participated. I understand that their doubts has been cleared by the state government, and very soon, we should be able to start the project construction.

Our entire workforce is now at the site. The contractors have been mobilized, the orders have been placed, and very soon, we should actually start the construction activity.

Got it, sir. Basically no delays anticipated there, understood.

Which is why in my opening remarks, I said we should be able to commission it in FY 2028.

Got it, sir. Sir, just one small question on our working capital.

It seems that we've increased our inventory by around 600-odd crores in the cash flow statement, sir. That's an anomaly versus our earlier numbers.

What exactly is this inventory increase, 600-odd crores?

There is some increase in the trade receivables as well as some of the investment has been sold. On the 31st on the 30th September, and the payment received on the 1st October.

That has been classified to the other financial assets.

You're saying that is essentially delayed receivables, that's what, right?

Trade receivables were 300 crore rupees something, and 500-something on sale of investment which will be the fund received on 1st

October. Sir, understood.

Thank you.

Hi, sir. Thanks for the opportunity.

I hope my voice is clear.

Yeah.

Yeah. Sir, I have three questions.

Firstly, I see that your thermal substitution rate has increased significantly, which means you are using more AFR. Is this 5% sustainable, and or is there any further potential of improving that, and how much cost benefit can we forecast on basis of this?

That will be my first question, sir.

We have started now pushing a lot of performance around TSR or AFR consumption, which is why you are seeing some good results from 2-odd percent to about 5% now. Some more plants are now getting put to handle AFR consumption.

As they are commissioned, this 5% should see improvements in the coming quarters. As far as what is the kind of advantage we get from TSR, I think it is a little too early because currently we are testing with all kind of alternative fuel, be it agricultural, or RDF, or liquids, or other kind of carbon black, on, forth.

Give us some more time. At about 6%, 7%, 8%, when we realize that number, then we will really know the cost basis for AF versus the traditional fuel.

Understood, sir. I think maybe in a couple of quarters, I'll come back to this and we can have further discussion.

Sir, my next two questions are more from the strategy point of view. Firstly, on capacity, another 3 million ton capacity in UAE, and if I remember, UAE used to be compared to India, a dull market.

Are you seeing an incrementally higher EBITDA per ton in that market? I just want to understand what is the logic behind redirecting a lot of cash towards UAE?

Again, versus that, in India, despite delivering strong performance, the utilization rate is between 55%, 60-odd percent, right? What is the strategy to improve utilization, which I believe will be a very, very value unlock for the company.

If you can just shed some light on this before I ask my third question.

First thing that as a company, we are very happy with our performance in UAE. We are also very confident of the kind of demand potential for cement that exists in UAE.

There is a slight issue because of the West Asia crisis or Middle East crisis, but we are seeing that UAE continues to build and continues to push for the cement demand growth. The new airport in Dubai is now getting constructed, which itself will consume very high quantity of cement, that's part number one.

Part number two, we were selling clinker in UAE as well as cement, and given the fact that the market demand for cement is robust, it makes ample sense to convert that clinker into cement and then sell, which is why this investment of 3 million tonnes is to our mind is justifiable. We are closely watching the market.

UAE also is one of the place from where we can make specialized products like oil-well cement and export into many other countries in Middle East, as well as in distant countries like US and parts of Europe. UAE because it's of course it's a coastal plant, and once the war topics kind of subside, then we should be able to see a much bigger demand emanating from UAE.

Having said that, even last few months, we have seen cement volumes very promising and much in line with our forecast. That's part number one.

What was the second question?

Sir, utilization improvement in India.

I think our strategy always has been to build as we progress, yeah. We do not grow by acquisition.

If you acquire, then you also acquire a typical market share. In our case, we build a plant and it takes some time before it is stabilized and market starts accepting that higher volumes.

When we say this, remember that 3 years back or 4 years back, our capacity was 46, and we were doing about 24, 25, yeah, around that volume, yeah. 3 years later, now we are doing about 40, 42 million tonnes and our capacity is 57.

Basically, what it means is a new plant which comes in the market, organically built, takes about 3 years to be fully utilized. That is the journey that we are in, yeah.

Understood, sir, and I think we'll discuss this better offline. My last question is largely on the let's say from here next 5 years, what is the key focus of Shree Cement in terms of strategy?

Why I ask is that till FY '17, Shree was the cost leader, then there was a time till FY '22 when Shree was expanding outside, then came a time when Shree was focusing on price appreciation. Given that from now, what will be your key focus for Shree as what will be the value system?

Will it be price appreciation which you have been doing or still cost control? Just wanted to understand in what mode Shree Cement should sit?

Shree has a core DNA. The core DNA is to all these three things that you talked about.

We have been building new plants for ages now. We have I do not know low-cost product producer, I do not say.

What I say is the most efficient producer, yeah. It is and that is our core DNA that we'll continue to push.

In recent times, we added one more topic, and that topic is to get the right price for our product. This is what we have done since last year.

Now, one year later, we are finding that strategy has paid out, and we have been able to improve our price positioning. Now as you see, at that price position, volumes are also returning.

Last two quarters, we have done a higher double-digit growth, I think 15%, 17%, 18% in the last quarter, for example. Our core strategy remains how to remain the most efficient, be it by bringing in EVs, or bringing in some new technologies, or making sure that our technical parameters are one of the industry best.

We will continue to grow. As I speak, we have a commitment to all of you to reach 80 million tonnes very soon, and we're working on that to reach that number.

At the same time, we have also worked a lot in last few years on improving our price position so that better price can be realized for our products. This is kind of three-pronged strategy that we are following.

Understood, sir. Thank you for such an elaborate answer.

I'll join back the queue. Thank you, sir.

Hi. Good evening, team.

Thank you for the opportunity. My first question is on the premium mix.

We have seen a sharp jump in the premium share, which is 29% this quarter compared to 21% last quarter last year and 23% in the previous quarter. Sir, is there any threshold in your mind where we want to reach from here onwards?

This is my first question.

No, if you're asking me, the ambition would be to do 100% premium, yeah. What as an internal target we have kept is in few years, we should be crossing 40% premium share, yeah.

I think we gave this promise for about '28, '29. I was not so confident of reaching 30% so soon.

I'm happy that we have reached there, and a lot of work has happened. I was explaining to your colleague a while back that we are now really pushing that we should get the right price for our products, as well as we should bring right products in the market.

Recently, we have launched a new brand called Bangur Total, which is our first water-proofing cement, which we have got in the market. This is again a high premium cement.

Idea is to bring in more closer to market needs kind of products and get the right price. 30% is what we have achieved, and as I said, our aim is to cross 40% in the time to come.

Sure, sir. In the same breath, sir, what is the gap between Shree's mass product and the premium product versus the top-tier brand in each of your market?

Has this gap reduced, or what is the quantum now?

Typically, premium cements are Rs 25 to Rs 35 more expensive than the base products from our side. At wholesale level also, you'll see that Shree's premium products are sold at about Rs 25 to Rs 35 higher than our base product.

What is new thing is that products like Total or Marbles, which are priced little higher, where you can expect to be about Rs 35 to Rs 40 higher than the base product.

Got it. Sir, few bookkeeping questions.

What has been the change in the rail-road mix from previous quarters?

Current quarter rail is 8.5%, and against September 25 it is 11%, and June 26 it is 9%.

Oh, sorry, can you repeat just the rail mix last quarter?

Rail percentage is 8.5% for the quarter.

8.5%. This was 11% last quarter?

Last quarter last September 25 corresponding quarter it is 11%,

and

June 26 it is 9%.

9%. Okay.

What was the lead distance this quarter?

Lead distance for the quarter is 427 kilometer, and against which in June 26 it was 445, and September 25 it is 441.

Got it. Last question

Sure.

Hi, good evening. Congrats for a great set of numbers, and thanks for taking my question.

First question is what would have been the clinker volumes this quarter?

Hello? Parvez, we will not be able to share the clinker volume separately, because since last quarter onwards, we have decided to give total volumes and anyway clinker is minuscule as compared to the total, there's no point giving separate volumes or numbers for clinker.

Sure, sir. Last question, what would have been the share of blended cement this quarter?

Blended cement is around 58%. Compared to last year, it was around 68%.

Yeah. Thanks, sir.

All the best.

Hi, sir. Good evening to the team, and congratulations on a great set of numbers.

Sir, my questions are in two parts. First, if you could explain the rationale for this China subsidiary, and that through the UAE step-down subsidiary.

Why are there any strategic reasons that we are looking into that? Second question is around your cost metrics.

You're already very strong on your power cost. Your per-ton per-kilometer freight cost is among the lowest, given that 430-odd kilometer lead, and you're still around Rs 1,100 per ton.

What further cost levers are we looking at from a one- to two-year perspective? In terms of India growth story, what other capacities, obviously we know that your Meghalaya plant is on track by end of next financial year, beyond that, if in FY '29, are we planning any expansions?

First part was the China story. China, as you all know, has become a major hub for the supply of cement spares as well as cement project items.

China's manufacturing capacity for project-related items has doubled up, and we see that there is a potential for us to reduce our dependence from European suppliers to China suppliers. This is a first-level work.

We still have to see what is the kind of savings we will get from China. We still have to see whether in reality China equipments will be more efficient and lower in cost compared to our traditional one.

What we are doing is to opening an office there to start learning about China, their facilities, their equipment supply facilities, and try to bring some of those equipments into our new projects that we will be doing, as well as try some of the spares that are available in China for our requirement in India, as well as in UAE. China is the first step, at this moment, it's an experiment which we are doing.

Once we start and we see over a period of time if it starts making sense, then we will further strengthen our China facilities. Second part of your question is

Second part, sir, on the cost-saving potentials that you look in India.

Why UAE, why not India, and so on, forth. We find that from UAE, the visa process is far easier as one.

Two, there is good presence of Chinese engineers in UAE, where it's easier for us to negotiate, it's easier for us to meet them, and so on. India and China relationships now are quite positive, but we have known that historically that there are some kind of fault lines with both us and China.

That is why UAE has been given as a preference. As I said, and I would really highlight this, this is a first step that we are taking in China.

The intention is more about learning how does China industry operates. The intention is more about to know the way they build, the way they construct, the way they keep the cost at the levels that they talk about, and see if we can bring some of those expertise and skills in our operations in India and UAE as well.

Sir, India cost-saving potential over next two years, given that you're already very strong on

Cost is something on which any company keeps working continuously. Are we.

We have spoken about that we are trying to increase our alternate fuel consumptions from current level to higher levels, yeah. We've already demonstrated from 2.5%, now we are at 5%, and I think with the kind of facilities that we're putting up, we should go up further in the coming days.

Alternate fuel is one of the big topics for us. Logistics is a big topic for us.

We're also investing in some of the plants to create railway facilities, yeah, the intention is that it will bring down our cost of transportation. That is a second lever we are working on.

Beyond that, there is hundreds of experiments are being done in Shree every day, and each one of them yields some kind of a cost reduction potential, and that is what we are known for, be the most efficient, and that is our DNA, and that will continue to push.

What capacities you are planning to add

I'm just completing this. What capacities you're planning to add in FY 2028 beyond Meghalaya?

48 to 50 million tonnes is what we will reach in the short term.

Okay. Great, great, sir.

Thank you, and all the very best.

Hi, sir. A couple of data points.

First, clinker factor or maybe a CC ratio for Q2, how much was that? Second is on the UAE revenue in terms of the rupees, which is part of the consol revenue, how much was, and maybe in the Q1 FY 2027 also if you can share that number, would be a great.

Your first point was on the conversion factor, the conversion factor is around 1.51 for this quarter. Okay.

Can you just repeat the second question once again?

I'm saying UAE revenue for Q1 FY 2027 and Q2 FY 2027 which is part of the consol revenue.

No, UAE revenue we'll not be able to give separately. Yes, volume we have already shared with you.

Okay. In terms of the UAE for India, we have said that we are looking at a 41 million volume for this year.

UAE which is in 1H is already down close to 7%. How one can look at the second half for UAE, or maybe the full year, how one can look at the volume given the 3 million ton that we recently have started?

Yes, the three in UAE for the first six months, we have already done around 2.1 million. Yes, 2.1 million.

We expect similar rate going forward for the second half of the year. Yes, from the additional 3 million tonne, we believe around 30%, 40% you can take 30% you can take from there.

Total UAE will be around 4 to 5 million tonnes.

4 to 5. This will be on a full annualized basis even for

Yes, full annualized, yes.

Okay. Last, sir, just a clarification

Whenever we start a new capacity, as Mr. Akhoury said, it takes around 2 to 3 years for it to attain its maximum sales.

The first year, the utilization level will always be around 15%, 20%.

Yeah.

Over a period of 2 to 3 years.

Then UAE EBITDA margin would be of 1% or 2% better than the reported consol?

No, we'll not be able to share separately the EBITDA margins of UAE.

Power and fuel, just to clarify, you said for Q2 it was 2.59 kcal cost and that we are expecting

No, second quarter this quarter the fuel cost was Rs 2.09 as compared to 1.66 last year and 1.95 in the June quarter. For the forthcoming quarter, we have given a guidance of Rs 2.15 to Rs 2.20 based on our order pipeline.

Okay. Lastly, any

Thanks.

Just one small data point. What were the external power sales for us this quarter?

Am I audible?

Question was on the power sales?

Yes, external power sales this quarter, sir. No,

well, Siddharth, let me remind you about 1 year 3, 4 quarters back, we decided that since power is not that significant, we are not going to share any numbers pertaining to power separately.

Understood, sir. Thank you.

Hi. Sir, is it possible to help us with the earmarked capacity of power for external sales?

We have 503 megawatt of CPP, out of how much of it is earmarked for external sales?

How much of it is earmarked for external sales?

Yeah.

I think it's better to avoid this question, because power division, we are not going to share any separate details. As I told you, and moreover, looking at the overall numbers, overall revenue and the contribution also, it's hardly any significant.

Sir. That was my question.

Yes,

if you want a breakup of the total power facility, yes, that we can share. Total capacity of power is around 1,170 megawatts, out of which 503 is thermal and balance 666 is green, including WHR, solar, and wind.

Got it, sir. Got it.

That was my question, sir. Thank you.

Thank you, and thanks a lot, and thank you for attending our conference. Just last few words, as I said, last quarter has been encouraging for us in all our performances.

We find that many of the steps and initiatives taken some years back are now finally paying off, be it in price, be it in cost. We will continue to work on those levers in next several quarters as well.

What I see in quarter four in quarter three and quarter four, with the demand and with the kind of work that we have done on the cost, we should be able to come up with reasonably better, if not similar, numbers on performance as we did in quarter two. Again, thank you very much for attending today, and good day, everybody.

Thank you.