Note: This is a preliminary transcript and may contain inaccuracies. It will be updated with a final, fully-reviewed version soon.
PCBL Chemical Ltd (NSE: PCBL) Q4 2026 Earnings Call dated Apr. 30, 2026
Corporate Participants:
Nilesh Koul — Managing Director
Raj Kumar Gupta — Chief Financial Officer
Analysts:
Sanjesh Jain — Analyst
Unidentified Participant
Presentation:
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to PCBL Chemical Ltd. Q4FY26 earnings conference call hosted by ICICI Securities Ltd. 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 the 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.
Sanjay Jain. Thank you. And over to you Mr. Chain.
Sanjesh Jain — Analyst
Thanks Ranjo. Good afternoon everyone. Thank you for joining on the TCPL Chemical Limited Q4FY26 results conference call. We have PCBL Chemical Management on the call Represented by Mr. Nileshkal Managing Director Mr. Raj Gupta, Chief Financial Officer Mr. Pankaj Kedia ED Investor Relations. I would like to invite Mr. Nilesh to initiate the call with his opening remarks post which we will have a Q and A session. Over to you sir.
Nilesh Koul — Managing Director
Hi, good afternoon everyone and a warm welcome to you on the PCBLS Q4 and Q4 full year 26 earnings conference call. When we last connected at the Q3 earnings call, we had outlined the headwinds shaping our business softer global benchmark spreads, surplus domestic capacity, geopolitical uncertainty and a sharp inventory adjustment by international customers. Most of these pressures persisted through the fourth quarter and FY26 whole has truly tested our resilience and our business amid a challenging microeconomic and industry environment.
That said, while we faced significant headwinds last year, the broad industry dynamics have now started to show clear signs of recovery. Spreads appear to have found a floor exit quarter momentum has turned positive. The recent rationalization of US Tariffs has restored a meaningful cost advantage for Indian exports. Customer pipelines in our specialty business are firming up and the ratification of the India EU FTA opens up a duty free access to 1.8 million tonnes of carbon black market. We expect this recovery to consolidate progressively over the next two or three quarters.
Today I’ll walk you through headwinds. We navigated the challenges that have emerged from the West Asia situation. The recovery signals we are seeing, the steps we are taking to strengthen our position and the outlook for the year ahead. I will initiate by briefly talking you through the key financials and operational highlights of the quarter and full year. The most defining feature of the quarter was the escalation of the West Asia conflict which began in February and created significant disruptions across our value chain and substantial increases in cost.
With approximately 75% of our raw material source from the US Gulf coast and around 40% of our business. Driven by exports across geographies. We have significant dependence on global supply chain and this quarter we felt the impact on multiple fronts. The West Asia situation has created new challenges in terms of massive increases in logistics, cost, cost of feedstock and the availability of ships and access to markets, while availability of CBFS itself has remained uninterrupted. As we continue to source from the US Gulf coast, raw material prices have risen, packing material costs have moved up materially and freight costs have escalated sharply, exerting significant pressure on our margins.
During the period, our key export routes to Europe and US pass through the conflict zone, causing disruption to the normal trade routes. Vessels are being rerouted via the Cape of Good Hope, adding at least 14 days to transit time and increasing logistics costs significantly. This rerouting has tightened container availability globally as vessels are caught in longer loops and the effect is visible in ocean freight rates which remain significantly elevated compared to pre conflict levels. Through all of this, our priority has remained unchanged.
The company is fully focused on ensuring timely supply to customers with no disruptions. I would also like to particularly acknowledge that most of our customers have been very considerate in sharing the increased cost with us and I sincerely thank them for their partnership. During this period. Our raw material is directly linked to crude price and this quarter crude rose sharply and witnessed high volatility. Brent started at around $60 per barrel and ended March at around $100 per tonne. As we speak, it’s hovering close to $120 per barrel.
A significant portion of our volumes flows through formula based contracts with images. Given that price contracts carry an inherent quarterly lag effect, the full impact of cost pass through will reflect in Our numbers by Q2FY27, at which point our margins profile should normalize. In the spot market, cost pass through has been initiated and will help offset the rise in input costs. We will continue to manage this actively as the situation evolves. A second important development is a clear shift in how customers are approaching their inventory.
We are seeing a trend of stocking up at the customer level, which appears to be driven by uncertainty regarding the availability of materials. Going forward, global tire majors are increasingly building strategic inventory buffers, transitioning from just in time to a more resilient just in case approach in order to mitigate supply chain disruptions. We expect this transition to translate into an incremental demand environment driven by restocking of carbon black across the region. Over the past few months, we have added 90,000 tons of carbon black capacity, enabling us to effectively cater to this increased demand.
With the global carbon black market continuing to grow over the long term, we believe we are well placed to benefit from this structural shift. Domestic and Export the domestic sales have remained stable supported by steady demand across key segments. Given our limited exposure to conflict affected regions, except maybe a little bit for the specialty volumes, exports have remained resilient despite the uncertainty arising from West Asia situation. Around 40% of our total sales volume are exported with South Asia being the primary markets and remaining unaffected by the ongoing conflict.
To navigate the disruptions in West Asia trade routes, we have proactively rerouted shipments to alternate geographies, ensuring continuity and minimizing any impact on international sales. With supply chain stabilizing, we expect both domestic and export growth to continue in the coming quarters. We are deepening our presence through a service led model in Europe and Japan, aiming to drive volume and market share growth through customized solutions with key players in these markets. Beyond the near term disruption, the underlying fundamentals of our industry remain intact and several structural tailwinds are turning in our favor.
The India EU FTA has been ratified bringing duty free access to an important market with insight. The recent U.S. Tariff reduction and duty refund benefits will also work in our favor. We are already in active conversations with customers in these markets and see good headroom for growth despite cost headwinds, the tire industry is navigating globally. Tire demand in the US and replacement segment has remained resilient. The Indian tire sector and FY27 is poised for robust high single digit growth.
High vehicle usage and aging commercial vehicle fleet support steady tire replacement demand. In India. The industry is also benefiting from capacity expansion, premiumization and electric vehicle EV adoption On the Special Black Outlook in the special black segment we took some price hike to meet the rising cost during the quarter. The near term environment has been influenced by slower infrastructure activity. However, our products are gaining acceptance in applications such as industrial coating supported by their performance characteristics.
That said, we are seeing encouraging traction in segments like ev, Semiconductor, Data center and AI led investment. Overall, we remain constructive on the outlook and continue to selectively increase our focus on resource reallocation in this segment. Just a word on Nanowave, which is our platform for battery. In the coming weeks. On the R and D front, the team has been significantly strengthened with enhanced lab capabilities. Business development has also been expanded across key markets including Europe and South Korea.
Engagement with large battery manufacturers is already underway to validate product properties post commissioning. A validation period of a few months is anticipated before capacity ramp up begins. This represents a significant opportunity for PCBL to diversify into battery material industry, a high growth, high margin segment with strong long term potential. A word on the initiative cost reduction initiative I had talked about in the last quarter. This initiative has made significant progress in unlocking efficiencies across manufacturing and procurement.
I’m pleased to share that the program is progressing well. Cost initiatives across yield improvement, throughput enhancement and feedstock diversification are on track to unlock over 200 to 250 crores of savings over the next four to six quarters. We have also begun introducing agentic AI solutions on the shop floor. Early signs are very, very encouraging. Faster decision making is already visible and we expect this to translate into improved uptime, better quality and more consistent operations.
This shift also calls for new ways of working and focused upscaling which remains a priority for us. An added benefit is faster speed to market from lat to actual commercialization and the ability to introduce new solutions that support a more sustainable value chain. As part of our long term cost resilience strategy, we are also actively pursuing feedstock diversification through backward integration into coal tar distillation. Increasing the share of coal tar based feedstock for select applications is a key lever.
Technical feasibility studies are currently underway and we’ll share more details in the next quarter. Now for the outlook at pcbl, we are no strangers to adversity and PCBL has navigated these challenging cycles in the past, be it raw material volatility, demand disruption or global macroeconomic headwinds. And each time we have emerged stronger and more resilient. Through all of this our priority remains unchanged. Ensure our customers face no disruption in supplies. We are doing everything necessary to meet their requirements without compromise.
We have already taken steps to address the current environment by tightening procurement, accelerating cost optimization and improving supply chain efficiency. As the environment normalizes and volumes recover, we are confident of delivering double digit EBITDA growth fueled by volume momentum, leaner cost structure and better pricing realization. We are maintaining capital discipline with investment priorities towards specialty carbon black, battery, chemicals and other value added segments where margins are higher and growth is much faster.
Importantly, we have used this period to strengthen the balance sheet. Net borrowings reduced by 454 crores to 4536 crores during FY26. Even while we funded 750 crores of capex, our working capital cycle has tightened further. The platform we are entering FY27 with is materially stronger than we were 12 months ago. Just a quick update on the projects with the 90,000 tonnes brownfield expansion of rubber Carbon black at our Tamil Nadu during this quarter our total installed capacity is now 880,000 tonnes per annum.
The superconductive specialty black line of 1kt at Palhej is mechanically ready for commissioning, however commissioning has been delayed due to gas shortage. The specialty black line of 20,000 tonnes in Mudra is now ready as well and we’ll be commissioning it in the next few weeks. Coming to the quarterly performance during the quarter, our consolidated sales volume in carbon Black business increased by 8% year on year to 161865 metric tonnes. Consolidated revenue from operations during the quarter was 2,066 crores and consolidated EBITDA was rupees 248 crores of the total carbon black sales volume.
Domestic sales volume grew by 21% year on year to 105055 tonnes while international sales volume decreased by 10% to 56,800 tons in Q4FY26. Moving on to our segment, Performance tires accounted for 88,591 tons, Performance chemicals 53,888 tons while specialty sales volumes was up by 26% year on year to 19,386 tons. Power generation increased by 12% year on year from 175 MU to 196 million units with external sales volume of 116 million units as against 100 million units in Q4.25. Coming to the full year performance during FY26, consolidated revenues from operations stood at Rupees 8189 crores as against 8404 crores in FY25.
Sales volume for carbon black decreased 4% year on year to 618956 metric tons in FY26 as against 596262 metric tons in FY25. The consolidated EBITDA for FY26 stood at 1081 crores as against 1384 crores in FY25. Power generation was up around 14% and power sales volume by 17% during this financial year. Turning to our specialty and solutions business at Aquafarm, it continues to face challenging external environments. There are different dynamics shaping performance across our key markets. I’ll take it one by one.
Aquafarm reported sales volumes of 21,998 metric tonnes, revenue of 339 crores and an EBITDA of 29 crores in Q4FY26 for the full year revenue was 1443 crores and EBITDA Indian Rupees 162 crores. Amidst the geopolitical conflict around the year, total sales volume in FY26 was resilient at 94,445 metric tons. During the year, home care sales volumes increased by 11% on year to year basis. Our water solutions business also faced headwinds resulting in a 12% year on year decline. Application specific solutions increased by 18% while the oil and gas segment declined by 19% year on year.
Impacted by low oil rig counts and frac spreads in the us, Lower oil prices pre vault led to more cautious customer behavior and an indirect impact on realizations. In Q4FY26 we faced multiple challenges during the West Asia conflict. Lead time and freight rates increased significantly alongside a 25 to 30% raise in raw material prices. Yellow phosphorus, acrylic acid, malic acid and other raw materials packed materials cost also went up materially up to 1.5 times. Disruption in LPG supply and increase in price during the war impacted production as LPG is used in a few of our processes.
However, to ensure wallet share loss we reduced deliveries in consultation with customers and and once again I would like to thank our customers for their continued support and consideration during this period. In home care, we are locking in orders for FY26 with our key customers and new products are also under approval. Similarly for Water Solutions and Green Chilets, several products at the approval stage and we expect these to materialize in the next few months. During the year we have successfully expanded our capacity from 1:30,000 tonnes to 1:67,000 tonnes enabling us to serve higher volumes.
Going forward, we are expanding our oil and gas business by increasing wallet share and strengthening new customer engagement. We now have presence in Midland and North Dakota and have also received product approvals from new customers in Latam. Overall, we remain positive on the strong growth opportunities in oil and gas and based on historical trends, drilling activity should raise by around 30% at current crude levels. Overall utilization level should also increase with faster commercialization of new products and diversification of our product portfolio.
With China implementing supply side reforms including VAT rebate cuts, provincial value added mandates and stricter capacity guidelines. We expect structural price improvement across various chemicals and we expect to benefit from the same in the near future. To Summarize, financial year 26 was a year that tested us, but it’s also a year in which we deleveraged, advanced our growth pipeline and built a sharper operating. The fundamentals of our industry remain strong. The early signs of recovery are clear and we are entering financial year 27 with great confidence and purpose.
With this I’ll conclude my remarks. Thank you for your attention and I welcome your questions now.
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’ll wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question comes from the line of Sanjay Jain with ICICI Securities Ltd. Please go ahead.
Sanjesh Jain
Yeah, thank you. Thanks for taking my questions and for this opportunity. I got few across the businesses. First, on the carbon black, what is benefiting us because the profitability in the segment has gone up is purely because US tariff has changed ways. We were struggling or there is a lower import coming from Russia thanks to the Middle east crisis. I can also sense inventory gain during the quarter considering that there was a sharper increase in prices across commodity which should have benefited in this backdrop.
How do you see FY27 panning out both from a volume perspective and the profitability perspective in the carbon black business? Thank you.
Nilesh Koul
I think first there were some US tariff reduction has definitely improved prospects which also means that more players are exporting material outside of India and therefore there’s a little bit of reduced pressure on the prices in India. While the tire business is based on pass through in the non tire business in India we have been successful in increasing prices over the last few months. Of course after the West Asia crisis we were forced to increase even more prices but structurally we have been able to improve some pricing in that area.
That’s one. Going forward I think we are optimistic on both fronts in terms of volume improvement, both domestic as well as export because the headroom for us to grow in export markets is significant and we are implementing some supply chain initiatives which will unlock some markets which we could not access given the transit time etc. On the pricing front also, while the industry continues to be over capacity, we believe that structurally we will be able to take some price increases with value added products coming into play as well as introducing new services for the customers which unlock more value for the entire value chain and therefore sharing that with the customers.
Sanjesh Jain
Got it, Got it. But what is the reason for jump in profitability this quarter? If you can break that up that will be really helpful.
Nilesh Koul
Raj, you want to get into details but essentially it’s contribution increase and yes there is a lag in inventory valuation as well
Sanjesh Jain
Sanjit, last quarter, if you’re comparing with last quarter, was not a usual quarter and our profitability dipped significantly. So while quarter on quarter, when you’re looking it is appearing as a significant jump. But this is not where we should be with the kind of volumes that we have done. And of course this quarter the volumes have gone up by 1000 and the volumes have contributed. EBITDA margins remain same. There’s, I mean not much improvement at EBITDA per ton level.
Operator
So
Sanjesh Jain
The real impact of all the initiatives which Nilesh just spoke about is yet to come. It is still not reflecting in the performance.
Operator
That’s clear. Second, Nilesh, on the entire shift towards coal tarp
Sanjesh Jain
Distillation, we have been positioned ourselves as a crude based feedstock producer and Colta which any which way is finding more buyer thanks to the multiple applications there. Now what is driving us to reconsider a business proposition to shift towards coltar distillation? That’s number one and number two, there’s already established we are procuring the Colta now how we ensure that we get the feedstock.
Nilesh Koul
I’ll get into more details on this in the next call because the project feasibility is being finalized right now but at the core of it is that we need to diversify our feedstock base. Second, it’s not that we will use coal tar for all applications. This will be specific application based. So there are applications where coal tar based feedstock is slightly better. We have also upgraded our facilities to be able to use combination of feedstocks. So that will help. And as I said, I’ll get more details for you in the next call where we would have already signed off the capex investment.
Sanjesh Jain
Got it. One last question on carbon black and then probably one question on aquafarm. With the existing West Asia crisis, do you think we are in a better position from a carbon black manufacturing perspective and tapping the US market or do you think Russia now has a chance of selling their product in Europe or that’s not happening.
Nilesh Koul
We are seeing good traction from US customers given that the tariff has gone down. Now of course people are waiting for final stability in that structure. The logistics cost is a little bit challenging, but I think we are more competitive now than we were pre war. So we stay optimistic for both EU as well as the US markets.
Sanjesh Jain
But how do you read the jump in the logistics? We are bulky material, right?
Nilesh Koul
Yes. Even with that we are competitive in the US market as the US customers are. Also it’s an underserved market and the US customers are Also trying to diversify away because the competition is China, Russia as you said they want to diversify to other Indian players. Therefore we believe we are still competitive in multiple applications.
Sanjesh Jain
Last one from my side on the aquafarm side phosphoric acid prices have gone up very sharply. That should itself has given a lot faster growth in my view. Number two crude prices very beneficiary for us in our US business. A combination of this does it improve the outlook for
Raj Kumar Gupta
AquaFarm in FY27? Now for last two quarter we have been doing EBIT losses there
Sanjesh Jain
Sanjay. Yes the phosphoric prices have gone up. We have also taken immediate price hikes from March onwards so it will have some cushioning effect going forward. But as far as the oil and gas business is concerned with this jump in the oil prices which we have seen we see substantial restocking impact coming in the first two quarter itself of FY27. So most probably you will see a decent growth on the oil and gas business in aquafarm in FY27.
Raj Kumar Gupta
And how should we see part to the profitability?
Sanjesh Jain
As you see from a profitability perspective what has happened is a significantly lower capacity utilization in the last couple of quarters that has led to some kind of negative operating leverage. Playing to our numbers as we see Q1 and Q2 onwards oil and gas business moving up sharply the same thing will turn into positive to our advantage. So you will see profitability moving up as our overall capacity utilization moves up from Q1 FY27 onwards.
Operator
That’s very clear. Just one balance sheet question, sorry I’m holding on more considering
Sanjesh Jain
There is a sharp increase in the feedstock prices that will put significant pressure on working capital and hands on the net debt position which already appears to be stretched incorrect profitability situation.
Operator
How do we want to manage this entire leverage situation and still continue to grow?
Sanjesh Jain
Overall borrowings have come down by about roughly 450 odd crores this year as you must have seen from the balance sheet. You must have also noticed that our investment in working capital has also gone down significantly. So we are managing our receivables and inventory very tightly and we feel that there is further scope for us to improve there. So we are instituting better controls. We believe that even despite crude being here and we don’t believe that crude is going to be here for the full year, we believe that, I mean maybe in a quarter’s time we’ll see crude should soften back to that 8090 level whatever.
Even if crude remains at $90 level I think considering the volume growth, the revenue growth, we would require another 100 crore worth of incremental working capital. That’s how we are estimating it as of now. And the cash generation with higher volumes and better margins will be far more than what we require to invest in our growth, pay out to shareholders and invest in working capital for this incremental requirement. Got it Raj. Thanks Nilesh. Thanks Raj for all those questions and best of luck for the coming quarters.
Thank you. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. Next question comes from the line of Rohit Sinha with Sunidi Securities. Please go ahead.
Unidentified Participant
Yeah, thank you for taking my question sir. So already some of my questions are answered, just a few from my side. One is as sir in opening remark indicated about the this price increase pass on would be majorly reflecting from Q2 onwards. I. I guess so. Just wanted to understand how this pricing pass on would be I mean playing out in the different segments for us for Carbon Black as well as for the Aqua farm also. And I think from March, March onwards we have some higher prices which came down in mid April.
But again this inscruta has again started moving up and probably there would be some some adjustment in the contracts also. So how the contracts are shaped and how we should look at basically going forward our Q1 performance also.
Nilesh Koul
So as you said, different segments in our market have different pricing linkages. So in case of tires for example there is a structure where pricing can be linked to and we have different types of contracts with tire consumers. Some are Q minus 1, some are M minus 1. So there are different pass through mechanisms. So those will come into effect as and when the contract terms move along with it. There is also a significant piece of volume which is based on spot pricing there we have anticipated and taken the prices up early.
As I said in March itself we had started taking prices up and price increases have gone through because obviously the entire industry is facing the same challenge. So we expect prices to be strong in Q1 and depending on how the crude situation moves this will sustain some part of it. We will lose later on as the crude prices hopefully come down. But we expect profitability improvement given the costing of our raw material available with us for Q1.
Sanjesh Jain
Okay. Aquaform is going
Nilesh Koul
To be a similar story for some segments where we have passed through and prices are linked to Q1, Q1 or M minus 1 in some cases.
Unidentified Participant
Got it. And from our new battery business how the things are progressing there when when we should be seeing the material numbers in that segment.
Nilesh Koul
I think the plant, the pilot plant is Ready. This of course is a very high value business with high margins but it also requires qualification. So the pilot plant is designed to start getting qualifications done within this year. Then we will move on to putting up a commercial plant with additional capacities. I would expect that FY28 is when we will start seeing commercial volumes going up. We will share more details as we progress in getting more qualification with our customers.
Unidentified Participant
Got it. And one last question for maybe for the guidance point of view and how we should be looking at the volume growth in the carbon black side for next year and and for the power business also I think, I mean some, some outlook wanted to know as demands are quite strong there but pricing has not been to that extent. So are we seeing any material price increase also going forward in the power side or it will remain more or less in this similar age?
Nilesh Koul
I think on the carbon black business now with our additional capacity coming in, we expect to see a high single digit volume growth. We should see a much stronger more than double digit growth in EBITDA as well for the next year. As Raj was saying, Q4 results are not what we aspire to be. So you should see significant improvement in that going from Q1 onwards. On power side, the pricing, there is two components of it. One is the bilateral agreements that we have now there the pricing is moving well and I would also expect that because of the fuel crisis in West Asia we should start seeing some better pricing realization Q1 onwards as well.
So we should see structurally better pricing in power business as well.
Unidentified Participant
Okay, that’s it from my side sir. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Operator
Thank you. Next question comes from the line of Aditya Ketan with Smith’s Institutional Equities. Please go ahead.
Raj Kumar Gupta
Yeah, thank you sir for the opportunity. Just a couple of questions sir. You mentioned in your opening remarks on the carbon like spreads bottoming out. So what are the indicators like if you can highlight and what is giving you that confidence that this has bottomed out and what are the triggers wherein it can improve? Apart from what we say that tire demand will grow. Any structural change in the business we can see. Okay now this has bottomed out and so comparing with last quarter actually spreads look much lower here adjusting for the inventory gains.
So what has changed and what is giving you that confidence that it has bottomed out
Nilesh Koul
For the Indian players Some of the positive things that we are seeing is because the US tariff issue is to some extent sorted out. So the additional volume coming into the Indian market is now moving towards us as well. So you should see some Improvement in volumes being exported out of India which therefore reduces the pressure on pricing in India. That’s number one. I think we are also continuing to see some inventory build up by our customers as well which is a little bit of an additional demand coming through and again should allow us to start charging a little bit more premium.
Third of course is the value added component of our business is going up and we expect to see that also helping us improve our spreads.
Raj Kumar Gupta
Got it sir, onto the customer side like you mentioned, so customers are keeping some inventory which earlier they were taking just in time. So can you highlight like what are the inventory levels today with the tire players of carbon black and specialty and aquaform across businesses
Nilesh Koul
It varies by customer to customer so depending on the market that you’re talking about. For example our domestic customers usually were keeping about three to seven days depending on the location of their plants etc. Which they are dialing up a little bit given the uncertainty in export markets. Again it varies across the value chain. What we are looking at doing is actually providing some more additional inventory stock points for just in time delivery as well for the longer term. This is not going to come in effect right now.
It will take a little bit of time to do that. But customers are increasing their cover for beyond increasing that by at least three to four days minimum as we see as of now. And this is true for specialty as well as for tire customers.
Raj Kumar Gupta
Got it sir. Sir, onto the equafarm like you mentioned. So with the rise in crude prices definitely coming quarters should look good. But you also mentioned onto the restocking pickup. So so suppose if tomorrow all these things stabilizes the West Asia crisis. We are everyone is anticipating crude price to fall down. So still this thesis will remain intact that demand will pick up and restocking things also will continue. Or we could be back to that original levels like we were saying earlier.
Nilesh Koul
So this is this we are not banking only on the inventory increase. We are also making efforts to grow share of wallet in terms of providing value added services and solutions for customers. As I mentioned there is a lot of new product approvals that we have got. So we are seeing positive traction beyond the immediate impact of inventory increase. So structurally we believe there is enough growth in the key segments oil and gas, in water treatment and the home care segments. Especially as we have got now greener products coming into the mix and we should see increased volume.
So no structurally we are making efforts to ensure that profitability goes up.
Raj Kumar Gupta
So current quarter when we look so we are sitting at around 29 crore sort of an EBITDA which I mentioned in the presentation. So for next year considering if things normalizes and you are mentioning that premium mix will go up, can we again go back TO that levels of 50, 55 crore EBITDA per quarter in aquafarm?
Sanjesh Jain
Yes, we believe we should be able to do that.
Raj Kumar Gupta
Got it. And sir, onto the volume side, any number for FY 2728 like earlier we had said for 26 so double digit volume note but I think we are at flat for FY27 26. Any number guidance
Sanjesh Jain
Specifically for Aquafarm?
Raj Kumar Gupta
Yes, yes, Aquafarm.
Sanjesh Jain
Aquafarm should see a very strong growth in top line in FY27. I think in the region of 20 25% is something which we believe should be able to achieve.
Raj Kumar Gupta
Such as. One last question onto the debt part. You had mentioned that we have also reduced some of the debt. Along with that we are also into capital expenditure mode. So this will continue in FY27. Also both paying off debt and simultaneously bringing CAPEX 2728. How you think, how you see things shaping up on different.
Sanjesh Jain
Yeah, we feel that we can generate more cash from operations than what we require to invest in growth and therefore there should be net, net reduction in overall leverage.
Raj Kumar Gupta
One last question that you mentioned in our investor day earlier, some 40 billion guidance of EBITDA by 2030. So does that hold us or is there any change onto that?
Sanjesh Jain
The long term fundamentals of the industry remain intact. These are short term, you know, some headwinds that we are facing currently. So from 2030 perspective we are very confident we remain on track and with all the initiatives that we are taking, we believe that we should be able to deliver those numbers.
Raj Kumar Gupta
Got it sir, thank you. That’s it from my side.
Operator
Thank you. A reminder to all the participants that you may press star and one to ask a question. Next question comes from the line of Nagat Wealth Fin Advisor. Please go ahead.
Sanjesh Jain
Yes, thank you. My question is back to the EBITDA per ton for FY27. So if I understand you said you are expecting a double digit growth on the EBITDA. So should I assume that the 14,900 odd per ton we should see at least about a 14, 15% increase on this number. Is that what this leads to?
Nilesh Koul
We should easily see that. Yes.
Sanjesh Jain
And it’s a mix of just,
Nilesh Koul
Just to clarify, it’s a mix of both. We see we expect pricing to move up and we also are taking significant initiatives on cost. So combination of that should definitely deliver that
Sanjesh Jain
And here you are coming to this number based on two factors. One being the volume growth of high single digits of 7, 8, 10%, 9% and the value growth of the remainder to get to this number is. That is again my understanding correct.
Nilesh Koul
So let me recapture. So there’s three elements. One is of course the volume growth. Second is a product mix change. We are getting higher value added products coming through. The third one is general price increase. I’m sorry, there’s a fourth one which is the cost initiatives which we are also taking.
Sanjesh Jain
Understood. So basically effectively the EBITDA ton moves up by a strong double digit number and we should also see maybe revenue increase, volume increase alongside all of these things.
Operator
Yes.
Sanjesh Jain
Right. Wonderful. Okay, great. Thank you. The other questions have been answered.
Nilesh Koul
Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. Next question comes from the line of Silesh Raja with PNK Securities. Please go ahead.
Sanjesh Jain
Yeah. Sir, in the last call we had mentioned that Aquaform received incremental allocation from customers like PNG Hintel. So could you quantify the potential volume growth expected from these two allocations over the next 12 years? Also regarding the recent removal of 13% VAT export debate which you were talking like benefit in China so specific to TBTC product. So within the Aquaform, the overall volume mix, what proportion of volume is currently derived
Raj Kumar Gupta
From TBTC product And what about the operating profit growth that we are expecting in a craft form?
Sanjesh Jain
So Sailesh, specifically if you talk about the Greenfields portfolio where we last quarter also mentioned that we have started receiving trial orders and supplies have started to both PNG and Henkel there I think from Q2 and Q3 onwards we see significant increase in the expected sales revenue as we get product approvals and supply moving up. So from potential perspective, potential is large. We ourselves have limited capacity. Our overall green kit capacity is 4,000 tonnes and we have been looking at expanding that capacity.
But we have been waiting for product approvals to come in so that we don’t set up capacities too early. Now as we see increasing sales in the Green kellets portfolio, both FY27 and 28, you should see significant increase in the revenue side and we will be adding more capacities on the Green portfolio for Equiform. Your second question. So once we get these product approvals from PNG and Henkel, we are also working with more customers to get product approvals from the non detergent side of the business too.
So this should help us to have a larger revenue increase from this Greenplex portfolio.
Raj Kumar Gupta
Okay, can you please quantify that? We are expecting around 20,000 tons incremental number.
Sanjesh Jain
Alesh, your voice is not audible.
Raj Kumar Gupta
Hello? Yeah, yeah sir, we are expecting 20,000 tons incremental number. Can you please quantify, sir, the volume that you are expecting from these two customers and also that EBITDA growth that we are expecting from Aquafarm.
Sanjesh Jain
A couple of things. The requirement of these customers is pretty large. I mean we will not be able to supply that requirement with what capacities we have. So if I tell you about the opportunity size, it is pretty big. Once we have received the trial orders in the last quarter and the supplies have started now, we have to build up that portfolio gradually. So if you recall couple of years back also we had mentioned that we have a very large ambition on the Green Kill export folio. We have some capacity.
We are now getting trial orders and more orders are expected to come in a couple of quarters. So by the end of this year we should have a much larger say when we talk about the Green Kill exportfield challenge is not the target market or the size of the market. And from a EBITDA perspective, I think while last quarter has been a challenging quarter in Aquafarm and we faced multiple challenges which Nilesh also mentioned during his opening comment, we believe that our goal remains to reach that 75 crore per quarter EBITDA run rate which we have been trying to achieve in the last few quarters.
And if the market would have been in a normalized scenario, we would probably would have achieved it by now. But over the next two or three quarters we believe that that goal remains intact for US to reach 75 crore run rate on a quarterly basis.
Raj Kumar Gupta
Okay, okay, sir. Great. Sir, the Europe market, if you see the carbon black, the size is around 1.5 million tons. Just to
Sanjesh Jain
Understand better, to see this potential benefit from EU FTA that could you please help us with the current supply mix? How much of demand is met through domestic production versus imports? And within imports, what is the share from China, India? Is there some Russia
Unidentified Participant
Supply is coming to Europe market?
Sanjesh Jain
Please
Unidentified Participant
Talk about that.
Sanjesh Jain
Europe on an average imports about 500,000 tons of carbon black every year. And earlier almost 80% of it used to come from Russia. Now of course it is spread across number of countries. India currently is doing about close to 100,000 tonnes to our understanding. And China share would be little more compared to us. Rest is coming from, you know, multiple geographies. Now in terms of how this EU FTA is going to benefit us, there is no import duty on carbon black in Europe, so there is no direct benefit.
But when you look at indirect Benefit currently tire imports in EU from India that attract four and a half percent duty. So once this FTA is signed and that duty is likely to get to 0% and is 1/3 of, I mean Europe accounts for 1/3 of India’s tire exports. So I mean that should boost up domestic production in India. And from that perspective it is, it is going to be positive.
Raj Kumar Gupta
So how much is domestic carbon black importance
Sanjesh Jain
In Europe?
Nilesh Koul
It’s not significant from
Sanjesh Jain
There
Nilesh Koul
And Russia into India, China
Sanjesh Jain
And Russia is not much. China has about roughly about one one and a half thousand tons a month. And Russia would be around similar 1 1/2 2,000 tons a month. India in totality imports about 8 to 10,000 tons a month.
Raj Kumar Gupta
Okay. Okay, thank you. Thanks.
Operator
Thank you. Next question comes from the line of Shashank Kanodia with ICICI securities. Please go ahead.
Raj Kumar Gupta
Yeah. Good afternoon team. Thank you for the opportunity. So sir, given the the current food prices, what kind of blended carbon credentials should we look for? Q1FA27 given that you closer to 100 cyberpest kg in Q4. Sorry, I couldn’t get
Nilesh Koul
The question. If you can say that again please.
Raj Kumar Gupta
Yes. What kind of blended carbon price realizations do we expect in Cuban effort to be civil given the crude prices that they are currently hoping that
Sanjesh Jain
Around. Around fourteen to fifteen hundred dollars.
Raj Kumar Gupta
Okay. Okay. And that is true for Indian markets as well, right sir?
Sanjesh Jain
Yeah, I’m talking about average blended both domestic international.
Raj Kumar Gupta
At the current level of crude prices how is the CBO versus CBFS portability? So do we see more of Chinese supply getting into the market? The current crude prices which is cold based or CBFS as a root is still advantage position.
Nilesh Koul
So the colta prices have also moved up. So it is even keel as of now. So pre war and versus now it’s, it’s about the same levels of difference. So when it is imported coal tar into India it’s still a little bit more expensive on a TCO basis because there is a difference in yield which we get between CBFS and coal tar. So competitive. But CBFS is better for us right now.
Raj Kumar Gupta
Okay. And you know for a quarterly breakup of volumes that you have shown in the presentation, your tire space volumes declined from 90,000 odd tonnes in Q4 to 88.88/2 thousand tons KT for this quarter. Whereas the domestic tire space has grown highly double digit. So is it just purely out of profitability angle that we have supplied less to the industry or is there some market share loss? Some. Some angle to it? I’m Talking about? Yeah. Quarterly sales volume for tire performance specialty that you have showcased in your presentation.
Nilesh Koul
Performance specialty. One second.
Raj Kumar Gupta
Talking about tire particular getting potentially declining sales volume 90,000kt last quarter and Q4 to 88.6 this quarter.
Nilesh Koul
This is, this is just a customer mix that we had and it’s just a timing effect in terms of when the material got supplied. So overall we are going to see growth in tire business as well.
Raj Kumar Gupta
Right. And lastly, sir, do we see Q1? You should.
Nilesh Koul
Q1. You should see higher volume from us on tires.
Raj Kumar Gupta
Okay sir. So given that there is there state elections in a home state, is there any recurring mental expense charge to a pnel for this quarter or do we expect something in Cuban.
Sanjesh Jain
Sorry, you have to repeat.
Raj Kumar Gupta
So I’m seeing that given that there are straight elections in your home state, do we see any one time recurring charge which is non decreasing in nature either in Q4 or in Q1? So we had a history of, you know, some donations in the past. So do we see that as an element for Q4 next quarter Q1?
Sanjesh Jain
Nothing significant.
Raj Kumar Gupta
Okay. And so given that you are expecting good amount of profitability increase for base carbon black as well as AquaFarm in FY27, do we surpass the FY25 base case profitability in terms of EBITDA and PAT?
Sanjesh Jain
Yes,
Raj Kumar Gupta
Sure sir. Thank you so much and wish you all the best. Thank you sir. Thank you.
Nilesh Koul
Thank you. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached the end of question and answer session. On behalf of ICICI securities limited that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines.