Birla Corporation Ltd (NSE: BIRLACORPN) Q1 2026 Earnings Call dated Jul. 31, 2025
Corporate Participants:
Unidentified Speaker
Sandip Ghose — Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer
Aditya Saraogi — Group Chief Financial Officer
Rajat Kumar Prusty — Chief of Manufacturing and Projects
Analysts:
Unidentified Participant
Rajesh Kumar Ravi — Analyst
Shravan S. — Analyst
Jyoti Gupta — Analyst
Saket Kapoor — Analyst
Kunal Shah — Analyst
Sanjay Nandi — Analyst
Ashutosh Murarka — Analyst
Prathamesh Rajaykumar Dahake — Analyst
Presentation:
operator
SA SA Foreign. Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to Birla Corporation Q1FY26 earnings conference call. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen only mode and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during this conference call, please signal an operator by pressing Star then zero on your touchstone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Rajesh Kumar Ravi, HDFC Securities. Thank you. And over to you, sir.
Rajesh Kumar Ravi — Analyst
Hi. Good afternoon everyone. On behalf of HDFC Securities, I welcome you all to the Q1FY26 conference call of Birla Corporation Limited. From the management side we have Mr. Sandeep Ghosh, MD, CEO and Mr. Aditya Sarogi Group CFO. I’ll now hand over the call to the management team, post their opening remarks. We will open the floor for Q and A. Over to you, Sandeep sir.
Sandip Ghose — Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer
Very good afternoon to everybody and thank you so much for joining in such large numbers. Though I’ve been reminded just before the conference that probably our timing is not very correct. It eats into, literally into a lot of your lunchtime. So we’ll consider next time onwards whether we should keep it at two or a little later and then keep all of you hungry or interrupt your lunch break. So good to have everybody here. And I will come straight to the brass tacks without too much of a preamble going around. I sense. And for the few people who have called us, etc.
There is a slight dishonorance or surprise at the kind of results we have done in terms of what were being expected by many of you as well as in the market. And I’d like to put it in context so that you understand the basis because this is something we encounter every quarter, irrespective of whether the quarter has gone very well or not so well. When it goes very well, sometimes there is an element of surprise there. And when things are not according to expectation also I think there is a degree of confusion. And that’s probably what is not understood very clearly to our mind is the changing, you know, business profile of Birla Corporation over the few years.
Initially, of course, Market took into notice our acquisition of Reliance. But post acquisition of Reliance, things have also further undergone some amount of structural changes at each stage and it will probably keep happening as we go forward. The most significant one, as you would know in the last two years has been Mukudban and the rapid scaling up of Mukudban. But simultaneously There are other things happened, like our Chanderia expansion, which had happened earlier. The utilization of Chandaria, although it was high, but now its utilization in the core markets has gone up significantly. And that’s linked to how those markets have performed now vis a vis some other markets in the neighboring region.
To be clear, what I’m trying to say is Chandaria caters for us large part of the traditional north. But in our terminology, we look at also Western MP and Western UP as part of Chandaria’s reach. And sometimes it can even in terms of Clinker, not necessarily in terms of cement. We could be even taking Chanderia Clinker all the way down to centre if the demand in that area center and east is different. So that is something which keeps changing in our company. And similarly, Chanderia Mukudban equally also plays not just a role in Vidarva, but we have always seen this Mukudban as a very integral part of our larger footprint.
Map. I recall, you know, when I first came in, there was a lot of skepticism among many of you, some of your colleagues, when I had said that, you know, Mukudban, we can actually supplement our Mukudban production in Clinker to use as far as if required all the way down to the east in Durgapur. And people didn’t believe, and some people, as I said, very skeptical or cynical about it. But that is precisely what we have been doing very profitably and very successfully. And that’s where our strategy has played out. So the point of my elaborating on these things is there is this whole context of our geographic footprint and how we move things seamlessly between our various units.
I think there is probably not a very full understanding of that. The analogy, I try to look at it when I talk to our marketing colleagues, everything that today’s organization is more like an amoeba. It changes shapes depending on how the market behaves, how the opportunities arise. And that’s how we also operate in our planning. When we look at it very holistically, we are a smaller player. Granted, we are a smaller player. We operate in a limited geography, but within that, this is how we try to optimize. The point I’m getting in here is when you look at realization, et cetera, our volume mix today, as of today in the last quarter, it stands at 50% in central India, it stands 21% in the east, 16% in the north and west is 13% as opposed to, I don’t want to take names of some of our peer groups.
But if I were to all of you can guess some of our peers who are in the same range, if I were to say one first set of people, they have as high as 68% or close to 70% in eastern India, no presence in the north or west or negligible presence in the west and they have a southern presence. There are other people whom we have who have again got 70% presence in the east and barely, you know, maybe similar to us kind of presence in the north but in the west they are negligible. There are again some other people who are in our league who have almost equal presence in between north and central.
Unlike us where the central is heavier, north is less, they have almost. So all these factors would be influencing the results not only in terms of what is there in this quarter but also in terms of the base effect. And I would take advantage indulgence for a minute to just recall, you know, last year 1st Quarter east was down, north was down, whereas center was by and large holding on. And for us, although the west or Maharashtra areas markets were not as buoyant because last year, recall these were all the aftermath of the elections, run up to the elections, summers, everything.
Although those markets are not buoyant, our presence there was much more limited because Mukutban had not been ramped up to today’s level. So these things have changed and therefore our, you know, this mix also is constantly changing. So our mix as in last year and our mix today is very different. So this year we have though we have a very small presence in the east, we have benefited also from the price increase etc. Which has happened in the east which is both. Although our Durgapur unit is a very small unit, it is very much in Bengal etc.
The market which is there Durgapur produces as you know, slag cement mainly we have a premium brand there, unique plus and that has done very well. And then Bihar also has been a market which has been on an upswing, upbeat. I wouldn’t say upswing have been upbeat due to all the things. But there Bihar we have a slight disadvantage because we don’t have a grinding unit there as compared to many of our peers. So we have to service them from Mihar and Satna and sometimes we are therefore subject to the vagaries of the logistics system.
So taking all these things into account, how the situation is fared last year again talking of our central region between, if we were to see in our markets between center region, there has not been too much of a price change between Q1 last year to Q1 this year over there, or even if you were to compare Q4 of last year to Q1 now, there has been a drop there, but it’s a marginal drop. It is not a drop of a very significant level. I think it would be about a 2% kind of a thing.
Aditya Saraogi — Group Chief Financial Officer
On the whole, we have seen, but.
Sandip Ghose — Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer
We have tried to hold on to our central prices. As we will talk later in greater detail, you will see in terms of how we have further buttressed our premium portfolio over there, how we have increased our blended cement percentage there, which we were in the previous quarters, we were forced to sell a lot in non trade, which we have reduced dramatically. We have reduced our OPC dramatically, taking. Up our. Blended cement and everything together. And that is how, if you were to look at it from a realization standpoint, that is how things have panned out. Where we have had a problem this quarter is we had two extended shutdowns in Mukudban and Mehar. These shutdowns were planned shutdowns, but their period got extended due to some unforeseen thing. In Mukudban there was heavy rains in that area. In Myher we faced certain problems. So those got extended. And having had a very Strong Quarter In Q4, we were actually short of clinker maintaining because our ambition of the plans was very high.
As you know, our plant in our core areas, our plants all operate at full capacity, full throttle. So we were short of clinker. So we had to purchase a lot of clinker from the market. We purchased maybe about a lakh tonnes of clinker from the market, which is 1 lakh ton we have purchased. And in fact, in the previous quarter we were actually. There was a net sales which was happening over in the previous quarter. Yeah, immediately preceding quarter is what I mean. So there is a delta which has hit us in terms of the clinker cost which you see reflected.
If you are seeing our EBITDA per tonne being lower than maybe what some of you have estimated. A large component of that comes from the clinker cost impact which you have had, especially in our central region, which is our core market, as I said, about 50%. Equally when we had a problem in Mukutban area, obviously that took some jolt on the sales in Mukudban. We could have done much better in Mukutban region given we had already ramped up. We had a market presence over there and some markets around it were also doing pretty well. So we lost something over there. So between these two things, I don’t want to put a number, but you’d be able to guess the 715 if it has because all of you had your own estimates could have been much higher had it not been for these two, the negative hit, I’m slightly lower, like so. Therefore, if I were to compare the two, the largest contributor of this result is the marginally lower realization which is a function of, as I said, the central region prices being somewhat lukewarm compared to what has happened in the north and what has happened in the east especially.
So those who have a higher presence in the north obviously have benefited. In the north prices, those who are present in the east, we also have a small presence. So we have also benefited, but albeit because our plant is small, our impact, what we have got is not as large. To compensate for this clinker loss, etc. Which I was talking of in the central markets where we had to buy clinker from many of our competitors nearby. Whereas as I said in the previous quarters, we were net sellers, we were doing, you know, there are many places which was swapping situations, but net net, we were sellers in some markets that has changed and that’s impacted the overall scene.
So these two per se should be able to explain any, as I said, any deviation which you have in your mind between our performance. But we as a company, as we have stated in the press release today, we think we are positioned on very firm footing, standing on four legs, very strong and with the flexibility which is something which we keep on highlighting everywhere. And this gives us the confidence of now moving forward with our plans. As again, there is no change. We have stated our growth plans earlier, so we feel we are able to move forward with far greater confidence and some of it you would have seen reflected in terms of our longer term plans.
Though this is not related to our caution to add to anything specific, but many people have observed our acquisition of some mining rights off late, etc. So these, as you see, are building blocks which are falling in place for delivering whatever our commitment is to our stakeholders and to the market going forward by 2027 and then by 2030. I would probably rest here and invite questions which would be answered not just by me, but I have with me as usual, our Group CFO, Mr. Adif Sarogi, our Chief Controller, Mr. Arun Agarwal. We have got Rajat Prushti, our CMOP Chief of Manufacturing and Projects and Mr.
Of course, Kalidas Pramanik, our Chief Marketing officer. So they will all join in to respond to your questions. But as always, we have been totally transparent and that’s how we will be with you. There is nothing to hide. There is nothing to. We don’t find anything that we need to be defensive about because that’s how things are as it stands and we are confident of the future. Thank you.
Questions and Answers:
operator
Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on the Touchstone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Shravanet from Dalit Capital. Please go ahead.
Shravan S.
Hi. Thank you. Sir. Sir, whatever you have given. So just to try to understand, in terms of the profitability, so given from thousand odd rupees EBITDA per ton, now we came to 750 nod. So given both on the pricing front and then the cost front, how one can look at this profitability from this quarter Q2 onwards or maybe for full year, any. Any sense how one can look at. So both you can say the current prices versus what it was in the Q1 and from the cost perspective, any further cost reduction, how one can look at the profitability.
Sandip Ghose
First of all, before I hand over to Mr. Sarogi, I’d like to make two comments. The 715 which I have already underscored, there is a certain, I would call it abnormal loss, which is on account, as I said very clearly, largely on account of our clinker shortage and therefore purchase clinker, which you know, our Mihar plant. I would not be able to tell you specifically, but all of you are very knowledgeable. You know our Mihar plant. Clinker is one of the cheapest clinker production which we have within the company. So is Mukudban. It’s one of the cheapest sources of clinker not only in the company, but some of them compare with the best in industry as opposed to that our own variable cost of clinker.
If I have had to purchase clinker from our competitors, who in a normal situation they would not be also having a huge surplus. So they obviously would not give it to me at any great discount. So the delta is very significant. And that delta is what has given us a hit in the results of 715. If you were to use since you’re comparing from 1000, a large component of that would be coming from this one single factor then the second factor is which we’ve already said there is a. In our case, in a weighted average basis we haven’t had a spike in in the prices which people in the east and people in the north have benefited from.
People in the east and South I’m not taking into account because south we are not present but eastern, north. And when you, but when you do peer comparisons, when you do industry thing, obviously the south factor will play in the results. And some some of our competitors who’ve got a strong south presence, obviously they have benefited from that. I told you we have among our people some people who have as high as 12% of their volumes coming from the south, others have close to 10% or more or 25, 26%. Also in the case of one particular player who also are in our league, so obviously their realizations would have been higher.
In our case a combination of our central region being slightly depressed. But also when we look at Mukudban, that area, the overall realization is much lower than if you were to compare with the east or north because the prices there are at a lower peg. So when you do a weighted average thing, our overall average realization comes down. So that has also had an impact. So these two impacts are there. Now if I were to talk going forward what you will see what we can predict. Obviously I don’t see our clinker shortage situation continuing. Okay, so we are not buying any clinker just now and I don’t expect to buy any clinker going forward either in Q2 or Q3, Q4.
We are quite self sufficient in our whole clinker position. So that is not going to happen. So whatever amount you’re assigning on account of the clinker thing that you can take out straight away best in terms of prices, everything is transparent before you. The good story is as all of you know and have been commenting in your report, there’s some background noise coming from some. Hello, yes sir. Mute the mic behind. So as you will see the prices I think overall between Q1 to Q2, except what I am reading in the south there has not been any dramatic change.
I can’t predict. I can’t do crystal ball gazing as to how it will behave in that months. It depends on monsoons, depends on various other factors. But I’m not seeing any huge dark clouds on the pricing front. So those factors remain static. What will change for us? Again, while I told you about the clinker element in center, that won’t be there but we’ll also have Mukutban which I told you we had lost a little bit of volume in the last quarter. That will get corrected. We will get back to our plan of ramp up and we believe in the center we will add to our volumes and market share because of some debottlenecking and other things which are happening as all of you know.
So that should give us. So those will change. Some of the other factors which is true for us could be true for others also in terms of you know, reduction in non trade sales etc. But there are also players we know who are in our direct competition who are highly OPC focused as well as non trade focused. Compared to them, the more the market develops we would be in a better position to reduce our non trade component and increase our blended cement going back to the kind of levels we were operating in the past.
Shravan S.
Sir, couple of Data points for Q1. If you can share Mukudban volume, lead distance, KKL cost and CAPEX and net debt.
Sandip Ghose
Who is speaking please?
Shravan S.
Sir, Shravan here from Dalit Capital.
Aditya Saraogi
Volume was 6.6 lakh. The fuel cost effects were around hundred average. Total.
Shravan S.
Sorry. Lead distance are. You said 340. 342. And KKL cost. You said 142.
Aditya Saraogi
146.
Shravan S.
146. And capex is 100 crore. Okay. Thank you sir.
operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Jyoti from Nirmal Bank. Please go ahead.
Jyoti Gupta
Thank you sir. For the opportunity.
Sandip Ghose
It’s not it’s opportunity for us. You don’t join the call often. So that you have joined with consider. Thank you.
Jyoti Gupta
No, no. I mean yeah. We disappointed in terms of the numbers. But I hope we know that the second half is going to be a very good, you know year for the cement industry. While this quarter has been almost like a 10% Y. My concern is that with your limited ability to cater to the market because of the capacity do you think there’s a possibility that in third and quarter you may lose market share even if you’re running, you know running at 90% utilization levels. So. And with this first. Yes.
Sandip Ghose
Two things. One is we don’t run at 90%. We run it much higher than that. Okay.
Jyoti Gupta
I know that 90% class.
Sandip Ghose
Okay. Okay. As I said there’ll be some more changes which are happening with the pipeline which will make it plus plus plus.
Jyoti Gupta
Okay.
Sandip Ghose
Put us in the league of people who have expanded their capacity and who are continuing to expand their capacity. That is Something which we are very conscious of. But that’s why our focus is not really what others are doing. They have their strategy, they have their own, you know, fights to play in the market. We focus on our strategy and that has been, as you know, focusing on our value share. We are not at this juncture, we are not worried about volume share as much because obviously since we have a limited volume, so we would like to improve our value share wherever possible.
And there is no hiding this fact. There is nothing to be, as I said, defensive or apologetic. We have certain constraints, but we feel that we do have opportunity to increase our value share. I was personally quite in the presence of my colleagues, I must say I was personally quite happy and flattered. If I may say that some of you who went. I saw some of the analyst reports which coming in from field visits which have now for the first time I found they’ve acknowledged openly that our products Perfect plus is operating at par or higher than some of our A category competitors.
So that should reinforce apart from the percentage figures which we give you in various markets where we are operating with more than in up, we have three premium brands, Perfect Plus, Ultimate, Samrat advance. Each has a segment. So that is how we have been doing in terms of moving up in this quarter. Mr. Pramanik and his team have further. Increased the premium component in the Mukhutban. Region where we are selling, increased our premium percentage from what used to be about 40% of sales to now 50% of sales. And again, I hope some of you. Who go for field visits will realize that our products are selling no less. Than the swell top brands in these markets. So we are focusing on that. We are aware of the Jyoti there will be. We cannot compete on market share, volume, market share with people at this point in time because we haven’t set up new capacity. Even if you are setting up new grinding capacity, we don’t have additional clinker coming in immediately. So we have to make do with what we have. So we focus on our strategy because through that our focus is to give the maximum returns to our shareholder with whatever assets we have, not only sweating them, but getting the maximum return out of them. And again, to repeat what I have always emphasized, we as a company have always believed from that the assets, and not just your plant asset, not just your thing, your major part of the asset which is not always recognized in this industry is the go to market assets which is your sales and distribution, the channel plus your people and your obviously your brand and marketing strengths.
Jyoti Gupta
I agree sir, in fact, I would rather look at Star Cement because in this situation where even star why it has actually increased capacity. But I feel that they will also have very limited presence yet even if that current capacity, whatever little debottle making we do, if we maintain a beta button of let’s say 1000, that creates a lot of value for the shareholders. That’s all I want to say that while we may be limited for the next maybe couple of months, but if we continue to maintain a very healthy Agatabhatan, that alone speaks volumes about the company’s performance.
Sandip Ghose
Thank you. But you know, that’s the only reason we. That’s our reason for existence. We will not give up EBITDA per ton for either lack of will or. Lack of, you know, you might say competence for full year.
Jyoti Gupta
Can we expect that you will recover the. You know, in the next three quarters and we’ll be close to ballpark of let’s say thousand or we will be close to 1100. Is there any estimate or benchmark your skeptical EBITDA but done for the company. And what are the kind, what is the amount kind of cost savings that you expect in the next over this year which you’ll achieve?
Sandip Ghose
Jyoti, you know us long enough to. Know that we don’t commit numbers in. Terms of future ebitda. Yeah. You know sometimes better than us what we are going to deliver. So I would go by your judgment. Rather than meet making a hazarding a risk. Okay. Or you can give me a separate call and tell me what is your. Estimate of EBITDA for the rest of the year. I’ll keep that in mind. Or target if you set for me. Thank you.
Jyoti Gupta
I’ll do that. Thank you so much, sir.
operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Saket Kapoor from Kapoor and company. Please go ahead.
Sandip Ghose
Saket, you have not you don’t come. For tea, but you join up here and ask questions. That’s not.
Saket Kapoor
Yes, no, sir, I will make it a point. Seek an appointment and we’ll be there before the agm. Sir, thank you sir for acknowledging me and namaskar to the team.
Sandip Ghose
You have another administrative unfair advantage over everybody else. You also attend the agm. So today you should not ask too many questions.
Saket Kapoor
The first part is towards the employee cost. When we cheat for on a quarter on quarter basis that has also gone up. So any one off item in it or is it the annual increment that have been factored?
Sandip Ghose
These are all function of fixed costs are a function of volume also Nabos. So when your volumes have suffered obviously. Fixed cost absorption will go up. If your answer is there that I don’t think you know apart from the. Usual increment, apart from the usual increment nothing really has happened. You have a better idea about where. We are placed on the remuneration brackets? It is just a function of volumes and you will see changes in that. As we go forward.
Saket Kapoor
The capex you mentioned 100 crore for this quarter. What have we budgeted for the entire year?
Aditya Saraogi
I think in the last call we had mentioned almost 1100 crores.
Sandip Ghose
In the ballpark of thousand we had said no change.
Aditya Saraogi
No change to what we had said last quarter.
Saket Kapoor
The number I mean thousand crore you.
Sandip Ghose
Mentioned around thousand we had said you.
Aditya Saraogi
Can check the rush called transcript Sanskrit.
Sandip Ghose
We are one company, you will appreciate we don’t change our position frequently.
Saket Kapoor
Keeping that into account what should be, what is the current net debt number, our current year maturities and what should be closing the year in terms of The debt levels .
Aditya Saraogi
Our current net Debt is around 2,300 crore and we expect to close less than 3,000 crores.
Saket Kapoor
Under 3,000 crore and last question is on the jute part sir in your, in your release you mentioned about the cost and the profitability to be best in the industry and I think so. You also mentioned the impact of higher raw jute pricing. So what steps are we taking and what are we eyeing in terms of being best in class in terms of jute and what can we expect from this segment going forward?
Sandip Ghose
Sir jute as we said we want to be the best in class. We are as you know the oldest jute operating company and this is our flagship company. There are no and what I always emphasize that other companies, some of them may be old but none of them have remained with the same owners for this length of time. Everybody has undergone a change. So we have a very different kind of not only a commitment but our relationship with this business. But what we are seeing today Saket first of all Jude, there is a lot of you know low, I wouldn’t call it low hanging fruit but there is a lot of you know things on the ground which can be swept aside if you were to just simply change your manufacturing practices, your efficiencies and we have already started getting benefits of that.
We are trying to reduce our dependence on government orders, improve our non government orders both in domestic as well as we have said there is a new focus we are putting on exports but along with that there is some modernization going on getting more the modern looms and Changing the increasing the efficiency there we are working on the raw jute and a whole host of things. The pricing which is going up in the market that is not really in our control that we can only try to do best by sharpening our buying practices buying policies where also we are having a much more focused commercial approach.
Saket Kapoor
Lastly sir if you take the volume how should the volume shape up for the balance 3/4 in terms of the volume growth credit key if you could just articulate for us I think changes.
Sandip Ghose
Saket we have been giving the annual indication we have given you 6 to 7% kind of a thing. That’s what we’ll maintain that guidance.
Saket Kapoor
Okay thank you sir. I joined the queue and all the. Best to the team sir.
operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Kunal Shah from Dam Capital. Please go ahead.
Kunal Shah
Yeah hi sir, just a couple of things. So one on a couple of previous calls in this press release as well you highlighted about prices in central India being a bit depressed now. Just wanted to get your thoughts on how would the supply demand dynamics play out in our micro pockets once JPA is acquired and ramped up. Now like do you see this pricing pressure to sort of sustain over the.
Sandip Ghose
Near to medium term JK or JP.
Kunal Shah
Jp, jpa, jps, Jay Prakash
Sandip Ghose
That’s still some way off. But you know the central market operates at three or four level segments and the growth also comes from three or four segments. Very clearly there is going to be a lot of infrared growth which is happening and where people who are much more dominant in the OPC segment and who go through in the non trade route for them that’s an area. But at the same time if there are investments and economic growth happening in those places we also see a clear trend to premiumization and growth of in the individual house building, house builders as well as in the retail segment.
Really we are seeing an UP trading happening in those markets. Some of them you have commented when you have visited Western mp. But similarly if you go to UP which you mentioned is you’re due to go you’ll find all these markets there is a huge upgrading which is happening there and we are, we would like to operate largely in that cream over there. And so that’s why even in this quarter if you were to look at how we have maintained our net realization we have been able to maintain, you know I can’t give you comparative figures between us and some of our peers in the relevant as you to use your very nice term micro markets our realization we’ve been able to Maintain basically on our premium, the premium we command.
And that also gives us stickiness in the volume there and gives us retains our market share in those particular segments. The real tussle will happen I think at the bottom of the pyramid as new capacities come up because people have to sell more on non trade on opc. And that’s where you see obviously that also impacts the retail segment. But when you are higher up on the value chain, you are somewhat insulated.
Kunal Shah
Got it. And just one related question then in this backdrop, like how do we plan to retain our trade level share? Like, given we have limited capacity expansions for the next two years in these home markets, so will we just keep focusing more towards the trade and you know, backtrack from the non trade OPC segment or how to think about this?
Sandip Ghose
We have said this again and again, Kunal, that trade is our bread and butter. Okay? That has always been our situation. If you go back, not just today, even earlier, we have always operated at plus 85% on trade as well as on blended cement, sometime going even higher. So we have no, we are not backtracking on the non trade. We sell non trade only when it is necessary. Otherwise we are quite happy to leave the non trade. For those who are interested in playing that in that ground, we choose our, you know, the price segment, the ground which we want to play with, what we have. So to say that for two years we will remain static is perhaps not very correct.
You will see, of course our new capacity of weihar will take two years to come up. But while that is happening, even within our existing mix, you will see both a qualitative change and some amount of innovations debottlenecking or some other tactical moves which will give us some edge. Obviously we cannot be competing with somebody setting up a new plant or reactivating a new plant. But within our distinct, what I keep referring to our value share, we will try to maintain that.
Aditya Saraogi
So Kundal, just to add to what Mr. Ghosh said, our share of blended cement, the proportion of blended cement this quarter was 89%. That is up from 82% on a sequential basis. So that is the kind of change we have been able to affect. And coming to the trade again in the immediately precinct faucet was 72%. From there we have taken it to 78% in this quarter.
Sandip Ghose
And that change of 82 to 89, I hope all of you will recognize appreciate it’s a reflection of our brand strength, our marketing, sales and distribution strength. This is something I like to emphasize because anybody wanting to turn the switch on and off are not able to do it so easily without sacrificing their brand premiums or increasing discounts or whatever.
Kunal Shah
Understood sir. This is very helpful. Thanks a lot.
operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Sanjay Nandi from VT Capital. Please go ahead.
Sanjay Nandi
Hello. Hello. Goodnoon sir. Thank you for the opportunity sir. Sir, in the beginning just mentioned that we have bought 1 lakh ton of clinker for this quarter due to shortage of blinker. So could you please guide us like what price did we buy or what is the average price which is running on casual date. For the clinker buy from outside we.
Sandip Ghose
Can’T divulge the exact prices and. We. Have given an indication. And that’s something very easy for you guys to find out. A couple of calls you’ll get to know what are the clinker price sales today.
Sanjay Nandi
Sure. Got it sir. So that’s all myself sir. Thank you so much sir. Wish you all the best.
operator
Thank you. Before we take the next question we would like to remind the participants to press star and one to ask a question. The next question is from the line of Rajesh Kumar Ravi from HDFC Securities. Please go ahead.
Rajesh Kumar Ravi
Hi sir. This quarter obviously you delivered very strong volumes gaining market share. And you also shared the regional breakup of your sales volume. We wanted to understand sequentially how were your regional sales mix in Q4 to understand, you know this sequential decline in pricing which you have which is visible in the numbers. Where did this decline come from? Decline on a Q1Q basis.
Sandip Ghose
Decline in pricing. We said there are two elements. You see. There is a price mix and the geographic mix. Okay. Volume in terms of geography which happens. So central region is the overall 50% of our volumes coming from center there. The prices not having gone up. You have to compare it relative to the other regions. And that’s how people things have gone. How they have gained in the overall mix. So central region is where we have. We said about minus 2% or so is the price hit which we have got. But other regions where it has gone up, which is east primarily we have benefited.
But our volumes there is pretty small. So we have not obviously got the same benefit as other people. In Mukurban area. The loss is essentially a volume. So there has been marginal improvement in prices in Maharashtra and western in the west markets in the last quarter. But we have obviously not benefited totally from this. Because of our this thing.
Rajesh Kumar Ravi
In Q4, what was the volume mix? As you mentioned 50% Central. In Q4 what was the central Mix.
Sandip Ghose
I don’t have the exact numbers but our west would have been slightly more. Yes. East would have been slightly lower. I think about 18 or 19% would have been east. West would have been higher at about 14 or 15% I guess. And north would have been by and large around this 16% or so. If the last quarter we had done very well in the north. Yeah.
Rajesh Kumar Ravi
And how much has been the incentive accrued in Q1?
Aditya Saraogi
23 crores, Rajesh.
Rajesh Kumar Ravi
Okay, 23 crores. So versus 40 crore in Q4. We have accrued only 23 crore in Q1.
Aditya Saraogi
Yeah. 41 in Q4.
Rajesh Kumar Ravi
41. Right. And so this depreciation 10% decline year on year what led to this fall in depreciation expense?
Aditya Saraogi
There is no specific legal assets. Maybe because there was shutdown. The running days was less. Maybe because of that. This.
Rajat Kumar Prusty
Limestone which has come down. And second of all many Access has reached 5% as per book.
Rajesh Kumar Ravi
Okay. And the lastly the progress of the Clinker expansion and Kundan land project. What milestone we have achieved so far on the Myer expansion Clinker line and what is the status on the Kundalin commissioning track?
Sandip Ghose
Rajesh, There is nothing very specific to report at this point in time. Maybe when we are having the next con call you will hear more from.
Rajesh Kumar Ravi
Okay, out of thousand or eleven hundred crore which you are targeting for this year Q1 you mentioned you have spent 100 crores. So 900 odd or thousand crore you would be doing it the subsequent nine months and where would they be allocated? Into buckets.
Aditya Saraogi
We don’t have that breakup. Mostly project time comes sitting in the mix of.
Sandip Ghose
Some of that which is in pipeline will get capitalized not yet been done. So some of that will come from there and few of them are from. Mr. Sarogi mentioned are from Sustain Stepics because we have a very.
Rajesh Kumar Ravi
And and lastly before I move on this Clinker extract purchase which you did. What was the additional cost which would have put on the books in Q1 which may not be present in subsequent quarter versus your own production cost.
Sandip Ghose
As I mentioned we cannot give exact specific figures. But you have a fair idea. We have given you as much of a hint that Myher is our lowest cost producer and opposed to that the people I buy from their cost itself is much higher. Again I don’t have to tell you the names or the kind of thing and they obviously situation would not give me at a discount. So it is a fairly heavy charge.
Rajesh Kumar Ravi
Understood sir. Thank you. I’ll come back in queue.
operator
Thank you. The Next question is from the line of Ashutosh Mudarka from choice Institutional equities. Please go ahead. Mr. Ashutosh, are you there? As there is no response from the participant, we move on to the next one. The next question is from the line of Saket Kapoor from Kapoor and company. Please go ahead.
Sandip Ghose
Saket. I thought your next question would be on 15th of September at the AGM. Why are you.
Saket Kapoor
For the WHRS what is our current capacity and what have we outlined for for the incremental capacity and the savings thereof, sir, if I may ask sir.
Rajat Kumar Prusty
So the current capacity of WH is around 40 megawatt and we have planned for any other modernization on these areas with around 10 megawatt more we are planning. So it will be roughly. You can say that 50 megawatt will be our whole capacity. Once we complete all the expansion which we have planned or modernization which are. Planned for the existing setups
Saket Kapoor
and how much you will spend for the same and payback period.
Rajat Kumar Prusty
Those are the things already.
Aditya Saraogi
We don’t get such specific details.
Saket Kapoor
Okay sir, since you mentioned that there is our mayor skincare are the cheapest. So if you could just outline to us what was the absolute number impact for the for the EBITDA person going down to 700 had been a normalized quarter, what would have been this number? Sir, any.
Sandip Ghose
We have said this repeatedly Saket in the course of this call itself we can’t talk of specific numbers on this. You have a very educated guest. I told this four or five times here. What’s the we gave you as much as saying that we have bought about a lakh ton of clinker. We have said that you assign your numbers. You get you.
Saket Kapoor
Thank you. Thank you sir. And all the best to the teams. Thank you.
Sandip Ghose
Thank you very much.
operator
Thank you ladies and gentlemen. We will take that as our last question. I would now like to hand the conference over to the management for closing comments. Next question is from the line of Prathamesh Dake from Motila Loswal. Please go ahead.
Prathamesh Rajaykumar Dahake
Hi sir, this one small question from my side wanted to check the update on the upcoming capacities and what will be the capacity installed by the end of 26 and 27.
Aditya Saraogi
We have given the guidance in the last conference call. You can have a look at that. There is no change in the guidance that we are.
operator
Ladies and gentlemen, as there are no further questions from the participants I now hand the conference over to the management for closing comments.
Sandip Ghose
No. Thank you very much for participating in such large numbers. Hope we have been able to answer some of your queries and doubts. Rest of it, while we have not been specific. That’s part of the policy. But I guess all of you have a fair idea on all the questions there. The last question which was asked. I would only like to comment that we are. You don’t see a clinker capacity coming before 27. It is all the major change you will find is that Kunnangan’s new line which is going to. You know that is going to get commissioned and in the course of the year.
Thank you.
operator
Thank you on behalf of Birla Corporation. That concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us. And you may now disconnect your lines.