Coromandel International Limited (NSE: COROMANDEL) Q3 2026 Earnings Call dated Feb. 02, 2026
Corporate Participants:
Sankarasubramanian S — Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer
Analysts:
Unidentified Participant
Ranjith — Analyst
Neerab — Analyst
Soumya — Analyst
Ankur — Analyst
Darshita Shah — Analyst
Naushat Chaudhary — Analyst
Pripul Kumar — Analyst
Nohit Nagraj — Analyst
Falguni Datta — Analyst
Rishabh — Analyst
Presentation:
operator
Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to Coromandel International Limited Q3FY26 earnings conference call hosted by IIFL Capital Services Limited as a reminder, all participants line will be in 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 over the conference to Mr. Ranjith from IIFL Capital. Thank you. And over to you sir.
Ranjith — Analyst
Thank you. Pari. Good afternoon everyone and thank you for joining us on The Coromandel International Limited Q3 FY26 earnings conference call from the company. We have with us Mr. Shankara Subramanian, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer and Mr. Deepak Natarajan, CFO. We would like to begin the call with a brief opening remarks from the management following which we will have the forum open for interactive Q and A session. I would now like to invite Mr. Shankara Subramanya to make the initial remarks. Thank you. And over to you sir.
Sankarasubramanian S — Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer
Good afternoon everyone. And thank you Ranjit. For the call. I will begin with a brief overview of the business environment during QA Q3 followed by Coromandel’s operational financial performance for the quarter. On the macroeconomic trend amidst global uncertainties, India continues to remain well positioned. The first advance estimate facing our GDP growth at 7.4% driven by services and manufacturing during the quarter, RBA reduced the report rate by 25 basis points in December 25th to 5.25 supporting domestic liquidity. During the quarter, the rupee remained under pressure on year to date basis. The INR depreciated close to 7% driven by a widening trade deficit and higher capital output by fbis.
On the agriculture side, late withdrawal of southwest monsoon led to crop damage in select pockets of western South India impacting agri input consumption during October and November. It was particularly visible in lower Chile acreage and grape segments affecting CPC sprays and nutrient application. India experienced normal northeast monsoon rainfall at 1 or 2% of long period average resulting in improved reservoir levels. All India storage stands at 107% of last year and 125% of long term average. Rabi sowings are up 3% year on year as of mid January with growth across major crops. Wheat has moved up.
Price has moved up sharply by 22% and ISP cereals all have shown positive trends. On the regulatory side, Draft pesticides management bill 2025 has been released for public consultation. This entails time bound approvals of generics, digitization of registration process and pediatric reviews of registration for safety and efficacy. Draft Seeds Bill are also released during the quarter which can lead to formalization of sector, improved traceability and reduce compliance burden. During the quarter, Department of Fertilizers launched an integrated digital fertilizer claim process enabling paperless transaction foster settlement of subsidy claims. In Q3 government released supplementary grants of 18,000 crores for subsidy.
With this total subsidy outgo for the year may reach up to 1.86 lakh crores for the year 2526. As you are aware the Union budget was announced yesterday. The budget has maintained continuity and agreed focused central schemes like Crop Insurance, Interest subvention, Commodity Price Support and PM Kisan for income support. A notable step is the proposed launch of multilingual AI enabled platform integrating the Agree stack with IECR agriculture best practices and focus on promotional of high value crops. As you all know that for the year 2627 subsidy allocation has been fixed at 1.17 lakh crores for urea and 54,000 crore for Asphaltic fertilizers under the NBS scheme.
In these indigenous manufactured fertilizer subsidies have been maintained at current year estimates with some moderation in imported fertilizer subsidies. I think looking at the past trend we feel the allocation of subsidy is reasonably adequate, marginally better than last year budget allocation. But as you all know that government always comes up with supplementary grant as and when it’s required. I think it’s a fair allocation. Adequate subsidiary allocation has been made recently announced India EU FTA Prema facility seems positive for agri input sector and can open up possibilities on export of agrochemicals, specialty fertilizers, bio products marketing and CDM moved through.
Of course the finer details are ready to evolve. On the industry performance commodity side, most of the key raw materials firmed up during the quarter. Processes in the quarter beginning moved up from 1258 to 1290 dollars and during the quarter we witnessed a sharp increase in the price of sulphur and sulfuric acid. Sulphur has moved up to $550 mainly triggered due to demand from LFP sector in China, nickel refining Indonesia and also supply disruption from Russia. Similarly, supply side outages in major sources of Saudi Arabia and Trinidad led to sharp increase in ammonia prices as well.
Overall due to unseasonal rains and delayed Withdrawal of monsoon industry’s fertilizer consumption was affected. Overall consumption during the quarter came down by 7%. However, thanks to intervention from the government the supplies remained robust and the production has also been good. Imports went up by 15% or 36% during this quarter. Overall I would say it was a tough quarter for the industry as extended rains have affected the consumption in agriculture packets and and sharp increase in raw material prices and currency depreciation put pressure on margins for the fertilizers. However, in the positive note we continue to see positive consistent shift happening towards NPK which improves balanced nutrition and on year to date basis overall phosphor dicks.
The share of NPK stands at 60% moved up from what it used to be 50% two years before. SSP industry has stacked well despite challenges of higher priced sulfuric acid consumption has moved up during this quarter. Coming to Crop protection business the domestic industry was impacted by lower acreage of key agrochemical consuming crops like chili and grapes and reduced spraying due to extended monsoon spill. Globally channel inventories have largely normalized and there is a good demand for some of our technical molecules especially mancosis. While there were lower instances of pest infestation, fungicide and herbicides application have been steadily going up which augurs very well for our crop production business.
Coming to Business Performance on Fertilizers As I mentioned we witnessed a very challenging quarter with a higher raw material price, depreciated rupee and not fully compensated NBS rates and the slowdown in consumption. Despite all these heavy wins, the business delivered a resilient performance supported by very competitive sourcing of key raw materials operational efficiencies and our plants have been operating at 100% capacity utilization and a focused market approach to offer value added products. The company achieved highest ever quarterly fertilizer production of 9.9 lakh tonnes which is 18% up over the last year. Phosphoric acid production also has grown over the last year.
Our backhoe integration project at Kakinada for sulphuric acid and phosphorus are progressing very well as per the timelines and will be commissioning during this quarter. The granulation train expansion is also on track and it will be commissioned in the third quarter of the financial year 2627. On the sales front, happy to note that we have become one of the largest prosphoric players in the country. The Q3 primary sale at 11.2 lakh 10 close to last year levels. Mainly we have moderated the sales to in tune with the consumption especially in the state of Andhra and Telangana.
Of course, the company has performed very well in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu offsetting some drop in Andhra. Our consumption based market share in Q3 moderated to 14% as against last year 15% which has slightly taken our channel inventory. We do hope that this will get moderated in Q4. Our share of unique rates has improved from 33% to 36% during the quarter and also we took some price correction during this quarter by 3 to 4% to offset the impact of increase in input prices and currency depreciation in ssp. Coromandel continues to do well be a market leader led by differentiated products such as grow plus and SSP plus urea.
The major share of these unique grades constituting 47% of the total SSP volume for the full year. Our phosphatic fertilizer volumes racking well on a nine months basis we have achieved 36.3 lakh 10 up by 10% compared to last year period. Our consumption based market share stands at 17% showing slight improvement over last year. We continue to work on new market expansions and the near to the basis sales have grown to 4 lakh tons. The 30% growth over last year especially from the northern markets which are not catered to in the past. We have created seed marketing and the results are paying off and this will be helpful as nmen we commission d new plant next year.
Our mining project at Senegal has stabilized the operation and become a largest exporter of rock phosphate from Senegal. And we are in line to achieve annual volume of 3.5 lakh tonnes of rock production this year. As you all know that we have set up a subsidiary company to form a joint venture Sacovit India Private Limited for manufacturing sale of phosphor gypsum based products. The project has commenced in next 15 months. We should be able to get diversified product portfolio from Gypsum. The specialty nutrient business which deals with water soluble fertilizers and organic fertilizers have achieved record Q3 volumes driven by improved performance of micronutrients and organic categories.
Business has introduced four new products and also a project what we announced in the last quarter for setting up a MEP water soluble fertilizer plant has commenced its activity at Vizag. Nano continues its growth trajectory in Q3, registering strong double digit growth with a strong focus on liquidation channel engagement. The company has become a market leader in Nano dap. The product has been very well received across the various segments especially in horticulture segments. Business is also evaluating global markets and associate very positive response and trials are happening across the globe and as and when the registration happens this provides opens up a new opportunity for exporting Nano DAP globally.
For the year the business has marketed over 4000 KL of Nano products which is 68% growth over the last year and leads the market in Nano DAP segment. As I mentioned earlier on the drone spraying business, we have covered close to 2 lakh acres during the first nine months offering scalable and efficient precision application solutions to the farmers. Retail, despite a slow start to the quarter, delivered a commendable performance of 20% year on year growth. During the quarter, the company added 84 new stores in Q3, taking the total store count 2113. Business continued to focus on new initiatives such as E Commerce, drone spraying, direct deliveries and insurance business.
On the crop protection bio business as you all see from the number, Crop Productions reported a very strong performance benefiting from favorable demand for its key molecules across export and domestic markets. Standalone revenue for the quarter stood at 785 crores registering a growth of 24%. EBIT grew by 74% to 158 crores resulting in margin moving from 14% last year to 30% in Q3. Export growth was driven by volume uptake and higher NRV of major technicals and addition of key customer accounts. Despite challenging business environment, domestic B2C improved sales during the quarter. Business is expanding its channel presence and has added thousand new dealers during the year.
New product shares stood at 25% on year to date basis reflecting company’s continued focus on portfolio diversification and steady traction of recent launches. B2B segment reported a very robust performance across product portfolio. In Q3, company expanded capacity for Mancosip and is further looking to expand capacities and initiated activity for the same. At Seligum plant, the bio business improved realization for its AZA products that support revenue and margin growth. The business is actively working on new product development including microbial platform and partnership opportunities on biological APIs. On its permanent subsidiary, NACL Industries had a tough quarter the revenue and ebitda.
While it is better than last year, the margin trended lower as domestic B2C sales were impacted due to adverse market conditions during the quarter. NACL has successfully completed rights issue, the process of which will be used to retire all high cost debt and also used for creating capex which can help in reducing costs and improving operational efficiencies for NACL plans. During the quarter, the company’s credit rating was upgraded to crucial AA stable. We are working closely with NACL team on SYNERGY areas including R and D, manufacturing, marketing and registration. The company’s drone subsidy Teksha is at an early stage of its growth journey and its full potential is yet to be realized.
The company is undertaking series of corrective actions and remain confident of improving the performance in the coming period. In parallel, efforts are underway to pursue technical partnership with leading organizations and improve execution across different agriculture, surveillance and training segments. Overall, Coromandel has performed very well in a challenging business environment with all business segments showing improvement over last years. The company continues to explore growth opportunities across both subsidy and non subsidy business while remaining focused on operational excellence, cost discipline and long term value creation. I’ll now request Deepak for taking you through the finance related updates.
Thank you Shankar Good afternoon everyone. With regard to the turnover, the company recorded a total income of 8,863 crores for the quarter and 25,759 crores for the nine months ended December recording a growth of 26% for the quarter and 33% for the nine month period. The share of subsidy business for the quarter and for the full year nine month period stands at 82%. As far as profitability is concerned, consolidated EBITDA for the quarter stands at 805 crores against 722 crores last year and for the nine month period ending December it stands at 2,738 crores against 2,202 crores last year.
Subsidy business share in EBITDA stands at 62% for the quarter and 67% for the nine month period and this is an improvement from the previous year’s number which stands at 69% for the quarter and 71% for the nine months period. Net profit after tax for the quarter stands at 488 crores in comparison to 508 crores for the quarter and for the nine month period it stands at 1784 crores against 1476,476 crores for the last year. The company continues to receive collect subsidy on a timely basis. For the year for the quarter ended December, 2,571 crores has been collected compared to 2036 crores last year.
For the nine month period the subsidy collection stands at 7,208 crores versus 5,891 crores in the previous year. The subsidy outstanding as of December stands at 3785 crores compared to 2095 crores last year. Further, subsidy collections continues to be robust and we have collected another 1300 crores in the month of January which covers sales up to last week of December. We continue to see a volatile rupee in Q3 in the range of 87.83 to 91 rupees to a dollar. We continue to proactively hedge our exposures on a prudent and a conservative basis. The board in its meeting held on 29th has approved an interim dividend of rupees nine per equity share representing 900% on face value of rupee one equity share.
Thank you. With that I turn it over to Ranjit. We can take any questions you have.
Questions and Answers:
Ranjith
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press Star and one on their touchstone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press Star and two participants are requested to use answers 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 Neerab from Anvil Wealth. Please go ahead.
Neerab
Yes sir. Good afternoon and thanks for the opportunity. Sir, first question is related to the crop protection business. Like for nine months if we see we have clocked close to around 21% increase in the sales as compared to last nine months of FY25. So if you can just share how much was the volume growth out of this 21% sales growth, what we have achieved.
Sankarasubramanian S
See I can give you segment wise growth. Probably volume will come back. Export has grown by 30% and domestic B2B institution segments have moved by 36%. And domestic formulation B2C business has moved up by 5%. In fact as you mentioned domestic industry faced rough weather during this quarter. The growth was marginal. It’s more, I would say volume and the value more or less. It’s aligned. You can take volume growth also in the same level.
Neerab
Correct. So sir, one, possibly the improvement of margins is because of the higher volumes and we would have achieved operating leverage out of our plants with the increased capacity utilization. The second part possibly could be the price increase. Or is it because of the launch of newer products out of what we have announced in the start of the year that we have launched close to around 10 new products in FY26. So if you can just share your views in terms of this improvement in margins, what we have achieved.
Sankarasubramanian S
The new products have helped in the domestic formulation business segment. But actually that has to really play out. If you see overall volume growth in domestic formulation still a single digit in the quarter but on a nine month basis it is 15% growth over the corresponding period last year. You are right. Partially it helped but it can do much more. But for the range we had we expected much better growth. Our growth has come from export segment where we have grown in terms of volume as well as in terms of price and being export oriented.
The currency also helped us to achieve these numbers. So it is a combination of volume and export revenue increase. And also the new product in domestic market even though it has not paid out.
Neerab
Sir, just slightly a longer part or a longer view question. Like we do export to Europe as a continent for our crop protection business. Let’s say last year we exported close to around thousand crores in total of our exports from the crop protection business. So A with the FTA being signed with Europe and B with this Chinese currency getting appreciated by close to around 9% over last one month, how does it will help us in terms of improving our exports to the Europe and as a business opportunity, how do you see Europe as a destination for our crop protection business? Thank you so much.
Sankarasubramanian S
See we currently export predominantly bio products to Europe, not much of agrochemicals. Our export of agrochemicals is more to Latin America and to various other countries globally. Not much to grow but I feel with our current India’s export share is very marginal at 9% and with elimination of duties up to 12 13% I think it will improve the export competitiveness. So we need to explore this further. At this point of time it has not really played out for us. We need to see how best we can leverage this. Especially it opens up lot of opportunities for the bio segment to increase the share of business because of the stringent restrictions on molecules.
I think bio can provide a great opportunity for Coromandel with the recent ETH on the agrochemical side. On the other hand we do expect some benefits to come in on the import of intermediates and key raw materials which we currently buy from Hero where currently the tariffs are as high as 22% with DE tariffing. I think that should also help us to access these raw materials intermediate at a competitive price point. So I would say the export benefit of bio and import of raw material.
Neerab
Correct. What would be our share of exports to Europe out of let’s say thousand crores? What we have achieved in FY25, any. Number which you can share, I don’t.
Sankarasubramanian S
Think it will be more than 15 to 20%.
Neerab
Got it. And so last bit from my side we mentioned in the opening remarks that we have expanded the Mancos app capacity and further evaluating to expand. So if you can share in percentage to terms also that how much we have expanded or debottleneck for Mencozep and how much more we are planning to add. Thank you.
Sankarasubramanian S
We have expanded 20% and now we are planning to expand another 30%.
Neerab
Thank you so much and wish you all the best.
Ranjith
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, please press star and one to ask a question. The next question is from the line of Soumya from Evandespa. Please go ahead.
Soumya
The opportunity, sir, first question. Fertilizer. So, taking the current raw material prices, be it sulphur, ammonia and phosphate, the subsidy into consideration. So do we need price hikes? Does the industry need price hikes? Or in our case do we need price to have our normalized margins of close to 5000 rupees EBITDA per ton?
Sankarasubramanian S
See, as I always mentioned, it is very difficult to estimate the margins on a quarterly basis. An annual basis, this EBITDA of 5,005 500 is still achievable for the current year as well. But there will be some drop in the margins. The current situation with the higher sulfur price and the currency depreciation and not so compensating subsidy on a quarterly basis there may be reduction but an annualized basis of 5,500 remains. And also it’s a function of inventory what you carry and what raw materials you have. And also we have taken some price corrections on key grades which we sell in fourth quarter.
So with that combination of inventory and the product mix, still we are there target of 5,000 to 5,500 EBITDA.
Soumya
Got it, sir. And the Foss asset price has been decided for the quarter, sir. And what would that be?
Sankarasubramanian S
Not yet. Currently the 1290 remains as industry is not keen to increase its price any further. Looking at the various aspects, industry will be pushing for cost reduction in processing price.
Soumya
Also the backward integration plant which is expected to start this quarter. What is the kind of utilization that we plan to have during the curve?
Sankarasubramanian S
We generally operate the plant at 100% from day one. And why not again for this project as well. So we’ll operate the plant at 100% capacity.
Soumya
Understood, sir. Also on the crop protection, you did mention about the export B2B and pre T. What would be the rough mix? I mean exports we used to be at a point 50% of the overall portfolio. So does that still remain in B2B and B2C? What would be the mix?
Sankarasubramanian S
B2B is around 25%. B2C will be 30% and 40 40.
Soumya
Sir. In B2C. What would be the volume and pricing factor? Very rough.
Sankarasubramanian S
Roughly 14% growth.
Soumya
14 growth in volume value. B2C.
Sankarasubramanian S
Yeah. B2C alone. This I am talking about nine months.
Soumya
Refer to the last quarter.
Sankarasubramanian S
The last quarter is only 5%.
Soumya
Okay. And that will be more volume and there would have been some price impact.
Sankarasubramanian S
No price actually we maintained it. It is more coming coming from volume only. We didn’t change the price.
Soumya
Understood. Thank you.
Ranjith
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Akansha from Access Capital. Please go ahead.
Ankur
Yeah. Hi sir. Ankur, this side. So thanks for the opportunity. First question on you know the growth and your margin outlook for the crop protection business Both on the standalone basis as well as on consolidated basis. Given you know NACL acquisition, how do you look?
Sankarasubramanian S
I would suggest at this point of time to be operated as a two separate entities. The synergy benefits are ready to play in. So in the case of CPC business of Coromandel definitely our contributions are doing good and it is in the range of 20% which we are confident of sustaining or improving it. For the quarter we achieved 20% and nine months is 18%. And this trend will continue from the coming quarters. In the case of Nagarjuna we had a setback last year and after we acquired this year a lot of actions have happened. And the main plant of Chicagulam is operating almost at a lot of cost reduction measures are taken up.
They already moved on EBITDA percentage standalone. They have moved to 9, 10% and which they should be able to sustain and grow further. They are also looking to improve the product mix and bring in new products. Currently they have a challenge of lower capacity position of their the hedge facility. So their margins will be muted until next time they find alternatives which they are working on. Once that happens and the margins should also move nacl.
Ankur
Sure sir. And just a follow up there, you know one on the the CDM or the industrial chemical side, you know any thoughts or any progress there considering you know the market also opening up a bit. And secondly just you know clarification on the NAC and margin accretion. This will be only led by Dahij. That’s the only factor left. Or there could be more levers, you know which can drive the operating performance here for nac.
Sankarasubramanian S
So the mixed change in the formulation business which is B2C that should improve the margins significantly. Saying current drag is mainly coming from the hedge. So daggage improve it. But the business is also working on introducing new products, introducing intermediate products. Improved capacity utilization Luggage also will add to that. There will be multiple levers they will be looking at and also we will look to synergize in terms of utilizing their capacity for manufacturing some of the molecules which Coromandel intends to introduce. There will be combination of multiple things.
Ankur
Sure sir. And any. Any thoughts on the industrial chemical side or you know, the. The pure grade phosphate or the other products that you’re working on?
Sankarasubramanian S
No, we are pursuing our interest on the projects what we talked about earlier in terms of purified phosphoric acid and also on CDMO play various companies with whom we have been working for last two years. We have moved into next stage and they have evinced interest and with Nagarjuna also in our fold, the global players are already reaching out to us for outsourcing some of their molecules and intermediates including fluorination chemistry. They are all in the nascent stage so we will update as and when we progress but it is tracking very well I would say.
A lot of interest have been shown by the global players after they have acquired this nacf.
Ankur
Sure sir. And just lastly on the standalone crop protection business, Mancosep has done very well for us in this financial year. What’s your thought on overall growth there ex of Mancosip given that, you know we have launched a lot of new products historically.
Sankarasubramanian S
So just from that perspective, seen in terms of the individual segments exports, Mankosib continues to be the major play and it will remain so and we will be expanding capacities. So we can’t be seeing without Mankosip. It’s an integral part of the business. We are trying to capture the value chain thereby diversifying product portfolio by introducing combination molecules and backward integrating mangoes. So I think Mankazou is going to be the integral part of our growth in export segment. I don’t think we can look at without Mankozu Burn exports. On the other hand in the domestic B2C a lot of inlaid molecules, we have a pipeline of 90 registrations which are happening and we have a slew of products coming in the next two three years that will sustain the formulation growth.
Actually we planned for at least 25% growth in the current year. But for this unseasonal range we have achieved and still we have achieved close to 15%. Even such a bad season with the increased territories, we have added 30 territories in the current year. Our game plan will be to expand our market territories and synergize our operations with NHL. Also we’ll be looking to increase our formulation business and domestic market by at least 20 25% going from year on year and be our approach on the branded business. So it will be a combination of domestic B2C growth of 2025% Manga SIP lead growth in exports.
But having said that we are also expanding our other technicals whether it is Malaysian capacity expansion or aciphyte capacity or looking at new strawberry in chemistries for which we have announced Capex last year, which bank after NHC acquisition we will be meeting those capacities also. We are also expanding our A portfolio as well in the global markets.
Ankur
Great sir, thanks for your input. All the best. Thank you.
Sankarasubramanian S
Thank you.
Ranjith
Thank you. The next question from the line of capital, please go ahead.
Unidentified Participant
Thanks for the opportunity. I hope I’m audible. I have few questions. Firstly on the your comments on sulfur prices increasing as of now with current raw material prices for sulfur as well as rock and your procurement from Senegal and sourcing strategy. Can you give some comments on current unit economics or backward integration project? Considering sulfur prices have moved roughly 5x I think it was $100 a ton a year ago and now it is close to 500 $550 a ton. So would you like to provide some comments how you are looking at the dynamics and unit economics of the backward integration as of now?
Sankarasubramanian S
Very difficult to put any number, but all you can say is there has been a reduction in the valuation compared to what it was six to nine months before. Obviously sulfur has skyrocketed from $180 $200 to $500 now, but fortunately the rock prices have been moderating rather it has not gone up and has softened a bit. That has cushioned this impact to a great extent. Also let us understand the fact that the phosphoric acid price also has been growing going up continuously $42,050 last year corresponding period. Now it is twelve ninety dollars. So if you look at the increase in process rate and the stable or softened rock prices, the value gap moderated but still it’s not very low and we do feel that the sulphur price increase is not sustainable.
Sulfur has always used to be a disposal issue. I think it is phenomena of short supply and excess demand which should get moderated as we move to first quarter of next. So we do expect sulfur bases to retest back. We have seen steady this trend in the past as well. Sulfur never sustained at this price. It generally crashes to $180 $200. We hope it happens at the earliest opportunity.
Unidentified Participant
And in terms of crop protection business, in terms of integrating NSCL in terms of supply chain plants, efficiencies, those sort of qualitative aspects. Are we done with all those things as of now or the integration is still sort of remaining in terms of the way you want to run the.
Sankarasubramanian S
MSCL business as of now it’s a separate entity, is being managed separately. Lot of cost reduction initiatives, process improvement initiative, product introduction to product expansion, brand building. It is all being addressed by initials. Our previous CPC business has moved in as managing director of NACL and to that extent there is a synergistic thinking and approach in what we do in CPC business and it’s still a work in progress. We have addressed the liquidity part by raising money through rates issue and reduce the interest burden, brought in the working capital discipline and also brought down the interest rates and working capital.
So I think we are on the right track. But still it is a work in progress. It will play out in the coming quarters.
Unidentified Participant
For a standalone business. Minko Zeb has done phenomenal for us over years and also in recent past. Can you explain what explains such bullishness for from your side in terms of Minkozeb for expanding capacity further after the one round has already been done is it comes off sort of a demand supply mismatch. We are seeing what what presents an opportunity to scale up further in Mancoseb?
Sankarasubramanian S
Good question. Mancoseb is actually there has been an additional spray in key crops like soybean corn in Brazil and that has increased the demand for Microsoft in Latin American markets and farmers preference for wide spectrum low price molecules like Microsoft has triggered a lot of interest for this molecule. As a company we are rightfully positioned to address this demand and we are also trying to enter into long term arrangements for securing the volumes on a long term basis. And also this wide spectrum fungicide with least resistance and can be used in combination with various other molecules.
So we are also in the process of coming up with the combination products and initiating registration activities in Latin America. Currently we are doing on B2B basis and we are trying to explore the opportunity of strengthening our presence in Latin America through B2C opportunities as well. So we are trying to see how do we convert this immediate increase in mangrove into long term sustainable demand especially in Latin American markets as Coromandel. Our dependency is not only in Latin America, we are also exporting into various other countries. Considering the increased demand for this molecule, we have started expanding capacities.
We are also building a strong brand in domestic market on Mancosu family. So we are trying to work on parallel many things to ensure that this volume growth is sustainable in the coming years.
Unidentified Participant
Lastly, on the Senegal mine business, can you give some sort of qualitative and quantitative sort of judgment where we are in terms of the production in the current quarter and in terms of profit contribution because of the Vasor integration, what sort of contribution we are getting at current prices? If you can give some comments and also a request from my side will be to give some sense of Senegal business separately. Because of the depreciation and amortization of the mining business, it gets little tough to understand the operating core business numbers. So it will be great if you can sort of have disclosures around mining business in the presentation.
Sankarasubramanian S
While I will have the number. But what I wanted to say, mining has to be seen as a strategic investment the valuation of which has gone up many fold compared to the value at which we acquired. It has brought in some moderation in the price at which we buy rocks. So to that extent no, I would say it’s a importance for Coromandel. With 20, 25% of our rock requirements are being met through our captive source. It gives us a huge advantage and reduce our dependency on other sources. So first it ensures availability of key raw material for the expanded capacity or the new capacity which is coming up in Kakinada.
So I would first take this as a supply security. Second, mining helps us to understand the cost structure better and our ability to negotiate cost prices with the rest of the sources and become far superior than what it used to be. Third, we have scaled up the volume and stabilized the production compared to what it was. We have achieved what we said at time of acquisition. We will do 300,000. We are achieving 350,000 tons in the current year and it is value accretive. I don’t want to put the numbers for the sensitive reason but definitely quite happy with the way played out in this year.
And going forward we will volume to 5 lakh tons thereby ensuring sustained availability of this source for our Kakanada capacity. And it is profitable. And currently there is X recovery which is happening. We are taking a lot of improvement efforts to improve the recovery and it will be a very profitable business on a standalone basis.
Unidentified Participant
Thank you sir.
Ranjith
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Darshita Shah from DSP Mutual Fund. Please go ahead.
Darshita Shah
Yeah, thank you for the opportunity. I had a question regarding our fertilizer volume growth. The DBT sales data that the company gives out in the presentation we see DAP and NPK put together sales growth was negative 1% for nine months during the Same period the growth for us was close to 10 odd percent. This is both manufactured and imported put together. Could you throw some light on where is this incremental growth coming from for us?
Sankarasubramanian S
So what is your first number? What is the second number?
Darshita Shah
No, no. So negative 1% was for the industry. The DBT sales data that we give in our presentation, that was minus 1%. So I think 1,199 lakh tonnes of volumes consumed, both DAP and NPK put together in nine months which was last year. This year it is close to 197. And the same for us say DAP, NPK imported plus the manufactured Volum. Both of this put together we did I think close to 36 lakh tonnes which was close to 32 lakh tonnes. 32, 88 lakh tonnes in the third quarter last year. So that’s almost a 10% growth for Coromandel versus a minus 1% growth for the DBT sales for the industry.
Sankarasubramanian S
See compiling the consumption versus our primary sales. If you look at the corresponding primary sale of the industry, industry also has grown by 16%. If you look at the industry, DAP and PK sales. Sorry, for the quarters we are talking about, it has moved up from 71 lakhs to 75 lakhs which is 6% growth on the primary sale. Against that our primary sale for the quarter more or less remains the same. 11.4, 11.2. It’s a comparing quarter. Just wanted to get the math right. Industry has grown basic. Rather we have maintained the same volume on a quarterly basis.
Darshita Shah
Yeah, I was looking out from the nine months perspective.
Sankarasubramanian S
Nine months perspective, industry has moved up from 190 to 220 on a primary sale it is 15% growth and we have grown from 32 to 36 31.7 to 36.3 which is 14% growth. So they have grown in line with the industry growth. What you are comparing is the consumption. The industry nine months at 2, not 8 lakhtanks remains flat. We have grown by 1% 33 more to 33.4 more or less our primary sales. Our consumptions are tracking line with the industry for the nine months cross. You want I can ask my colleague to send across you the data.
The industry growth of primary 16, we have grown by 14. Industry is flattish on consumption, we have grown by 1%.
Darshita Shah
Got it. Okay. All right. And in your opening remarks you mentioned something about the market share coming down from 15 to 14 for the complex. Basically the phosphate fertilizer division. So. Sorry, I didn’t quite catch the reason behind the fall in market share.
Sankarasubramanian S
Yeah, that is what the primary consumption as I mentioned, primary consumption for the industry has moved up by 2% for the quarter. That is more. The comment is more for the quarter moved up by 2%. Whereas in our case it was degree. That is where market share of consumption came down from last year 15% to 14%. This basically has happened because of the slowdown in consumption in southern state Andhra Telangana where there has been a significant impact on crop acreages of Chile while the fertilizer consumption came down significantly. So I said that the drop in consumption in Nepi Telangana which has been offset by Andhra Maharaj and other northern states but still not good enough.
And that is why the industry numbers are slightly higher whereas we are at a lower level of consumption in the third quarter. Mainly because.
Darshita Shah
Got it. Okay, thank you. That’s all.
Ranjith
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Naushat Chaudhary from Bella Mutual Funds. Please go ahead.
Naushat Chaudhary
Yeah hi sir, what was the subsidy EBITDA share this quarter.
Sankarasubramanian S
62%.
Naushat Chaudhary
Second clarification follow up on Ahmed’s question on the backward integration See in sulfuric acid and for. So if I’m not wrong roughly we are investing 1200 crore rupees in both this project and initial expectation was these two projects should help us roughly 400 crore rupees of EBITDA benefit annually Given the current pricing scenario 5, 10% here and there. But do we maintain that kind of expectation from the from these two projects or or should be meaningfully deviate from the initial expectation will be more or less same.
Sankarasubramanian S
I don’t see any challenge because it is not only because of sulfur is going up and sulfur goes up. VA price also goes up. So as far as the value addition is concerned I don’t see any major significant shift which is happening plus the power generation of 24 megawatts what we talked about that will also accrue. So our valuation is coming from. One is the valuation and manufacturing of processes. Another one is a power generation and the combination of these two I don’t see any major deviation compared to. You should be able to sustain that.
Naushat Chaudhary
Perfect. Thank you so much. All the rest.
Ranjith
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Pripul Kumar from Sumangal Investments. Please go ahead.
Pripul Kumar
Thanks for the opportunity. So sir, can you share the revenue and EBITDA for our retail business?
Sankarasubramanian S
We don’t put this out as a separate segment so I’ll be concerned about this number separately.
Pripul Kumar
And is it possible to share the financials of our drone subsidiary.
Sankarasubramanian S
It is too insignificant this point of time. And as and when we reach the size and scale and commence operations, they will be able to put out that number.
Pripul Kumar
And lastly, when this phosphor seed plant comes on stream, what kind of EBITDA increase we can expect per ton?
Sankarasubramanian S
It talked about it, right? In fact, as against the current annual average EBITDA 5500. We said we should be able to increase it to 6,500 annualized basis. We talked about this earlier as well and that we are just maintaining it.
Pripul Kumar
On the entire capacity or only on that particular plant?
Sankarasubramanian S
On the entire capacity, obviously.
Pripul Kumar
6500 you said, right, son. Thank you very much, sir. And all the best.
Sankarasubramanian S
Thank you.
Ranjith
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Nohit Nagraj from 361 Capital. Please go ahead.
Nohit Nagraj
Thanks for the opportunity. On the crop protection export segment, you indicated that there has been a good amount of volume growth as well as some pricing element in terms of the volumes. Is there any element of restocking because of which during the last three quarters there has been material improvement as far as the export volumes are concerned? Thank you.
Sankarasubramanian S
We are not such a big player to restart for Brazilia. We are a very small player. This volume growth has triggered mainly a point of Mancosib. The application has got expanded, expanded as I mentioned in my area response, more driven by the demand for this molecule which has improved the volume. It is not the inventory stocking up because ours is actually for more for consumption and 30 years phenomena. Not a very sizable player in a Latin American market.
Nohit Nagraj
Sure. And second question, in terms of NACL consolidation, although we are, you know, still in mode of integrating certain elements of it, when do we see a sizable element coming, benefit coming from the integration, Will it be from say a Q1 FY27 onwards or maybe second half of FY27? Thank you.
Sankarasubramanian S
The integration would be in terms of the management practices taking advantage of the best practices. What permutal is following. You can see that numbers are improving in anything itself from last making last year to profit making. And EBITDA is getting expanded. Capacity position is moving up. And we can see these improvements coming in from first quarter of next year.
Nohit Nagraj
Sure, that is helpful. Thanks a lot and all the best.
Sankarasubramanian S
Thank you.
Ranjith
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Falguni Datta from Mansarova Financials. Please go ahead.
Falguni Datta
Yeah, good afternoon, sir. I don’t know if I’ve missed listening to this thing of yours. So what Was the DAT consumption for nine months and also for npc. I mean not in absolute terms. How much was. How much was the like directionally? What percentage increase or decrease for Q3 or 9 months? 9 months and also for Q3. If you can mention for both these NPK and DAP for the industry.
Sankarasubramanian S
Industry NPK is outed -2% compared to last year corresponding period 52 lakh tons versus 50 lakh tons. DAP moved up by 13% from 26 to 30 Lakhtans.
Falguni Datta
DUP was up from 26 to 3030 and NPK was down 52 to 50. Okay. This is the fertilizer consumption for 9 months.
Sankarasubramanian S
This is Q3 you asked for. Right?
Falguni Datta
This is Q3.
Sankarasubramanian S
Correct. This is Q3.
Falguni Datta
And what was 9 months?
Sankarasubramanian S
9 months is 290.
Falguni Datta
Sorry.
Sankarasubramanian S
Two hundred and eighty lactance. Both DAP and NPK put together. It’s two hundred and ninety eight Lakton.
Falguni Datta
How does it compare with same time last year?
Sankarasubramanian S
It was same 220. Yeah. Flat. It’s almost.
Falguni Datta
Both DAP and NPK were flat.
Sankarasubramanian S
Yes.
Falguni Datta
Okay. Okay. Thank you sir. That’s okay.
Sankarasubramanian S
Thank you.
Ranjith
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Rishabh, an individual investor. Please go ahead.
Rishabh
So this the question is reference to the byproduct we are getting from the captive. Captive capacity. So can you give us guidance on what margins we are making on selling. Those. Getting as byproduct?
Sankarasubramanian S
I’m not able to hear you. Can you please repeat your question?
Rishabh
So the question is different to the phosphor gypsum that we are producing as a byproduct. So can you give us any guidance upon what margins or what realization we are making on that product?
Sankarasubramanian S
We don’t disclose it as a separate segment will not be able to get the data at this point of time.
Rishabh
So your earlier comments were that your payback period of this new plant is around two to three years. So do you consider this realization from this product also part of this realization?
Sankarasubramanian S
You cannot put this capex looking at gypsum realization. So the gypsum doesn’t play such a significant role in the overall economics of this project. Thank you.
Ranjith
Thank you. As there are no further questions from the participant I now hand over the conference to management for closing comments.
Sankarasubramanian S
Thank you all for your continued interest in Coromandel and thank you for joining this call today. We look forward to this future. Thank you very much. Thank you Ranjit for organizing this call.
Ranjith
Thank you. On behalf of IIFL Capital Services limited that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us. And you may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.
Sankarasubramanian S
Thank you.