Birla Corporation Ltd (NSE: BIRLACORPN) Q2 2025 Earnings Call dated Oct. 24, 2024
Corporate Participants:
Sandip Ghose — Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer
Aditya Saraogi — Group Chief Financial Officer
Unidentified Speaker
Analysts:
Rajesh Ravi — Analyst
Shravan Shah — Analyst
Jyoti Gupta — Analyst
Prateek Kumar — Analyst
Saket Kapoor — Analyst
Mangesh Bhadang — Analyst
Girija Ray — Analyst
Raaj — Analyst
Amit — Analyst
Presentation:
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Birla Corporation Q2 FY25 Earnings Conference Call hosted by HDFC Securities. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in listen-only mode and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. [Operator Instructions]. Please note that this conference is being recorded.
I now hand the conference over to Mr. Rajesh Ravi. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Rajesh Ravi — Analyst
Yeah. Thank you, Shejal. Good afternoon, everyone. On behalf of HDFC Securities, we welcome all of you to the Q2 and H1 FY25 earnings call of Birla Corporation. From the management side, we have Mr. Sandip Ghose, MD and CEO; and Mr. Aditya Saraogi, Group CFO.
I now hand over the call to the management for the opening remarks, which will be followed by Q&A session. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Sandip Ghose — Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer
Thank you very much, Rajesh, and good afternoon and welcome to everyone. It’s rather heartening to see we have almost 100 or little over 100 now guests available despite, what should I say, not so encouraging results so that’s a matter of encouragement for us that all of you therefore stand-by our comments and communication. And we have been in the past tried to be as realistic and as you know, to the best of our judgment, portray what we see the market and our company’s prospects are. And that’s how we would like to approach this particular call as well in talking to you. Normally probably when the results are not so good, people say much more to explain, but I wouldn’t do that. We have explained our stuffs in the — whatever we had to say in our press release, which most of you would have seen.
All that I’ll say is we recognize the market reality and we saw the headwinds. And our strategy is in that sort of a situation to keep our head down, bat with a — play with a straight bat, stick to the wicket, hold your ground, rather than try to do any shenanigans or try any kind of, you know — trying any helicopter shots or anything of that kind. And that’s how we would like to navigate in the days to come as well because we remain, as we have stated in the press release, cautiously optimistic. Though I have seen many people expecting a huge upturn in the second half, of which almost a month is already over, so that means five months and people have expected — some have talked of a massive upturn, while we definitely see things improving on both price as well as on volume and demand front, but we are not painting an extremely bullish scenario.
We have projected our second half in terms of volume increase at about [Speech Overlap].
Aditya Saraogi — Group Chief Financial Officer
Y-on-Y basis, based on H2 volumes.
Sandip Ghose — Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer
H2 volumes we have looked at second half about year on — Y-on-Y basis, 7% to 8% and that’s how we would stick. And for our entire year, we are looking at about 4% thereabouts plus or minus. And that’s what we think is realistic at the moment to assume.
In terms of EBITDA, we are again looking at between first half to second half. We have projected about one — between INR150 to INR170 upswing in the EBITDA format and that is how we see it translating. We don’t see — again, going by some market indications, people have talked about getting only through realization, people have talked about getting INR200 gain by realization alone. We don’t see that as — in such an optimistic scenario. So we have taken our all told given our cost — continuing cost efforts to reduce cost, increase our — the geo mix and everything else, we have projected about INR170 as I said. And that is all that we would say by way of guidance at the moment.
And the rest of it, we remain consistent with our strategy in whatever we had been doing. And our approach would be to — we have had a sort of a, in our older plants, our core markets, we have had a little slip in terms of capacity utilization and I’ll explain why that has happened. And we would — what we really look forward to is to be able to take our capacity utilization up in those plants to over 100% as we had been doing or close to 100% in our — especially in our Central India plants, and Mukutban, where we had achieved a very good ramp-up and scaling up and we hope that the pricing scenario would allow us to again get back to the same kind of levels of about 60% last year, what is that we…
Unidentified Speaker
Capacity utilization for…
Sandip Ghose — Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer
No, towards the end, we were almost operating at about 60%. So that is the kind of level we would like to get back to. Hopefully with the demand picking up and if there is slight upturn in prices, so in the West, especially Maharashtra, we are being circumspect because of the elections which have been announced and that impact will continue for about a month at least and whichever government comes in by the time they settle in, new funds are sanctioned, etc, I think we will get into at least January there.
In our core market, we are also factoring in the Mahakumbh, which is going to happen in Prayagraj. That’s once in a 12-year event, as you know, and that entire area, the logistics get impacted. So that will also something which will eat in to the peak season period of January, February, which is usually there. So we are being cautious on that count as well. But the real pain point in the last two quarters has been, in our judgment, in our view has been the non-trade sector. If there is any impact on — everybody talks about consolidation in the industry, if there is any, I think visible impact of consolidation, we have seen that happening in the non-trade sector where the prices had crashed — come down very abnormally or unrealistic levels in the last quarter especially, and in the markets where we operate in north and center, we are not — we were never major players in the non-trade category or OPC category.
As you know, historically, we have tried to keep our non-trade levels to below 20% and our OPC at below 15% of our capacity over there. Now because of you know, the whole market dynamics, the trade sector or the individual homebuilding sector since they were not as buoyant in the last two quarters as all of you would have noted and seen, there has been a major market shift towards non-trade. And because of the market shift towards non-trade and also OPC component — I’m talking this, I’m talking about the industry as a whole, not about us.
So since the market shifted towards non-trade and also OPC, and overall industry capacity utilization came down by a couple of percentage points by our reckoning of whatever figures which are available from the analyst reports, which are coming out, then there has been a shift in that direction and there were price drops very, very significant, which made it unviable for us to be participating in the non-trade and OPC segment in many markets, especially in Rajasthan, where things dipped, as I said, to very abnormal levels in the pricing of non-trade and OPC. Similarly in UP, in Bihar, our things and people were participating.
So we deliberately chose to keep our exposure limited there because we certainly didn’t want to operate at a variable cost loss or a cash loss to be in those markets. And that has resulted in our slightly lower capacity utilization that what we are capable of and what could have done and we have not certainly tried to push volumes unnecessarily, we should have hurt both us as well as the industry. We tried to be prudent in that. But we hope from whatever we are hearing, if the non-trade prices, if people are — if there is more, I should say, rationale pricing and market things happen in the non-trade and OPC sector, that will have its positive rub-off in the trade sector as well, and that should benefit everybody, and that is where what we see as a silver lining going-forward.
Finally, coming back, to summarize, as we said, we are looking at second half in a very sort of a positive, but with a great deal of realism, pragmatism. And therefore, we are committing our growth for the entire year. We are talking about, as we said, around 4% in the volume growth. Annually, we are talking at about 8% to 9% or around 8% is the growth. We’ve talked about the EBITDA increase, which is around INR170 is what we are — guidance which we are giving just now for second half. The increase between first half to second half.
And with that, I will rest my introductory remarks, open up for questions, and we’ll be happy to wherever we can elaborate further or comment and/or where we can’t, we’ll be very honest and frank enough to tell you our situation. The one last one which I missed, which is mentioned in our press release is our progress of our Kundanganj third-line is going on satisfactorily and on track and we hope when that comes in next year we will have some of the incentives which we lost because of Kundanganj incentive getting expired last March will get restored. And between that and we’ve already started clocking in incentives from Mukutban, between these two will be kind of back to a level-playing field that what we were pre-March 2024.
So that’s how we’ll — the only other major significant change which we see. Some of our competitors have the advantage today of having incentives, especially in UP, which is enabling them to participate much more aggressively in the non-trade segment or even the OPC segment where they’re doing. We are constrained there, not that as I said, our intention is not to sell more OPC or more non-trade, we would like to remain in the trade segment where we feel we have very strong brand assets. Our brands are today very well-accepted, especially Perfect Plus and Samrat has always been heritage strong brand in UP, Chetak is a heritage strong brand in Rajasthan and our distribution system, which we have our distribution assets, go-to-market assets, they are very strong in our core markets. So as soon as markets bounce back, we hope to be back again on the driver’s seat as far as the trade and channel sales are concerned. Thank you.
Questions and Answers:
Operator
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions]. The first question is from the line of Shravan Shah from Dolat Capital. Please go ahead.
Shravan Shah
Thank you, sir. Sir, just a couple of data points needed. What was the incentive that we book for Mukutban in Q2? And if possible in third and fourth quarter put together, how much are we likely to book the incentive for Mukutban? And also the volume for Q2 if possible?
Sandip Ghose
I’ll let Mr. Saraogi answer that.
Aditya Saraogi
So in Q2, we have booked incentive of INR17 crores from Mukutban.
Sandip Ghose
17.
Aditya Saraogi
17. Okay?
Shravan Shah
Okay.
Aditya Saraogi
And what was the other question?
Shravan Shah
How much more in the second-half we are likely to book and what was the volume of Mukutban?
Aditya Saraogi
We had guided for total incentive of about INR100 crores for the whole year, we are standing by that guidance. Okay?
Shravan Shah
Okay. And the…[Speech Overlap] Yeah, and what was the volume in 2Q and the lead distance in for second quarter?
Aditya Saraogi
The volume was 50,000 tonnes and the lead — 5 lakh tonnes. And the lead distance was around 340 kilometers.
Shravan Shah
340. Distance for the full entire company.
Aditya Saraogi
For Mukutban, it was 425 kilometres for Mukutban.
Sandip Ghose
Were you asking for the entire company or you’re asking for Mukutban?
Shravan Shah
Entire company, sir.
Aditya Saraogi
So entire company it was around 350, the lead distance.
Shravan Shah
Okay. And last sir, just a clarification, this Prayagraj 1.4 million tonne when it is likely to start?
Aditya Saraogi
Q1, we have mentioned [Speech Overlap].
Sandip Ghose
We are talking about Kundanganj third line.
Shravan Shah
Yeah, that is — that we know. But on the Prayagraj 1.4 million tonne when it will start?
Sandip Ghose
No, that we will announce. We have not announced commencement. It is in the pipeline, but we — projects starting we will announce whenever we are ready for it.
Shravan Shah
Okay. Okay. Lastly, if possible, the capex for full-year INR800 crore we said and we have done INR200 odd crores. So any downward revision in the capex?
Aditya Saraogi
The capex for the whole year we expect to do about within INR700 crores. Okay?
Shravan Shah
Okay. Okay. Thank you, sir. And all the best.
Operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Jyoti Gupta from Nirmal Bang Institutional Equities. Please go ahead.
Sandip Ghose
The clarification — sorry, before you go on, just one clarification for Dolat Capital. What we are saying is our first unit, which will come on stream is Kundanganj. Prayagraj is in the pipeline, but we have not commenced construction there. So we are not committing the date when it is going to come in. It is also linked to certain other things. So right now, what we are focusing, what we have visibility and committing is Kundanganj. It should not be read as Prayagraj is not happening. Prayagraj is very much as part of our plan like a few other locations of grinding unit, which we have announced, but we talk about these specifically only when we have started the project, broken ground, and that is where we stand as far as Prayagraj is concerned. Thanks.
Jyoti Gupta
Sir, can I ask my question?
Sandip Ghose
Yeah, please go ahead, sorry.
Jyoti Gupta
So in second half, you said your EBITDA per tonne will improve by 170. Just wanted to have an understanding in terms of cost, where do you see the cost and what kind of cost means improvement you will see from Project Shikhar in terms of numbers from Mukutban and Unnati, and your logistic optimization, what kind of numbers you are building in the second half in these two projects? In case you have anything [Speech Overlap].
Aditya Saraogi
For these two projects, in the second half, we are expecting efficiency of around INR70 per tonne for Unnati and Shikhar taken together.
Jyoti Gupta
Each after taken together, INR70.
Aditya Saraogi
Taken together INR70.
Jyoti Gupta
And INR100 will come basically from raw material and the volumes on the…
Aditya Saraogi
INR170 is the cumulative effect of realization, cost optimization, efficiency improvement, everything.
Jyoti Gupta
Yeah, okay. Okay. And I just see that you are not very positive — quite cautious on the second half, but obviously first. So how do you see the — any particular impact apart from the non-trade segment that we see is coming from the consolidation we are impacted like adverse impact from the consolidation in your core markets apart from non-trade which has taken downturn by INR300 per tonne decline [Foreign Speech].
Sandip Ghose
So we are not seeing any impact there. As I told you, it’s a function of — we are luckily, Jyoti, given our capacity, as we said, we’ve been operating at 100% capacity, and we would be very — we don’t see that as a problem. And I talked about in those core markets, touchwood, fingers crossed, we have very strong brand assets, we’ve got very strong go-to-market assets. Today, we can say with great deal of — with some degree of, I think pride in terms of our people’s strength, we believe that the branding of the company has gone up significantly, at least from how we see interest of people, especially in sales and marketing to come and join us at various levels today.
So I think we are quite well placed to take on the market opportunities as soon as the — there are some tailwinds which come in and the market table improves. I deliberately talked about the non-trade because that’s an area where we don’t participate and that’s where area where limited players participate in a limited way. And certainly it is not OPC, it’s not our preferred product. We don’t like to do that. But when those segments come down, there is obviously there is an impact — a spillover impact on the trade segment. So I am taking a hope or encouragement from certain pronouncements, which I hear in the market where people are talking about increasing bottom-line contribution through realization of INR200, I expect some of that will come through the non-trade and the OPC segment as well, which should augur well for trade and the blended cement segment where we are major players.
Jyoti Gupta
Okay. Sir, anything that we expect from the Orient — the acquisition of Orient Cement. Do you think this is with Adani…
Sandip Ghose
We don’t operate in that market. We are very small operators in Telangana.
Jyoti Gupta
Okay.
Sandip Ghose
We just watch it from the ringside. We are on the other side of the fence there sitting in Maharashtra.
Jyoti Gupta
Okay. [Foreign Speech]. Thank you so much, sir. Thank you.
Sandip Ghose
Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Prateek Kumar from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Prateek Kumar
Yeah, good afternoon, sir. A couple of questions. Firstly, on your premium segment, it is like very high overall mix. So when you say that the price of trade segment like sort of gets impacted by [Indecipherable] is the premium segment also gets impacted likewise or how is the difference like sort of changes?
Sandip Ghose
See, premiums don’t exist in isolation. Premium, you are always when you’re talking about premium, you’re talking about a base price. So if the base price drops, obviously, while the delta might remain similar or delta may marginally grow up — increase, but overall in the price table, there is going to have only so much of a difference between what’s happening in the non-trade and the trade. So our premium, we consider that to be a competitive advantage of this company. As I’ve said in the past that we are one of the few or perhaps the only company where you can say with some degree of pride who straddles almost equally between the premium and the popular segment. I don’t call it popular, I call it the value segment. So between the value and the premium, we operate almost on equal footing.
So to that extent, we are able to calibrate some of our shifted — so therefore, in this quarter, you’ll see when part of the realization which we have delivered, while we have been able to keep our realization higher or the drop lower than the market drop is because we have been able to ship volumes towards premium in most of our markets. That’s how our premium volumes have increased. But we don’t see any absolute virtue in either premium or value segment, we will offer what the customer wants.
And so if the value segment again picks up, when I’m upping my capacity utilization, not all of it will come from premium, it will come from value as well because that’s a very important segment of the market. You cannot — you don’t operate right at the top end. You’re also — the middle matters. And we would like to be present everywhere.
Prateek Kumar
Sure. One other question on incentives, the guidance for INR100 crore incentives in FY25 compares to INR160 crore or INR140 crore to INR160 crore in past three years. Is that right or…
Sandip Ghose
Yes. So it’s obviously the delta between what we were getting in Kundanganj, and this period, especially ’24, ’25, you will find that as a gap because Kundanganj has stopped from 1st of April and only Mukutban is what has come in its place. The Mukutban incentive are lower than what we were getting in Kundanganj. So there is therefore, that is why you are seeing the 160 to 100 that is the kind of gap which you are getting. Hopefully, next year, as we go on commissioning Kundanganj Line 3, that will get restored, so you’ll find us back, as I said, it will be a kind of level-playing field once more between the two places, we will go back to our original levels of incentives in the company.
Prateek Kumar
And the last question on your comment there regarding Orient Cement, you said you sit on a corner of the other…
Sandip Ghose
We sit on the other side of the fence because we are in Maharashtra, they are mostly in Telangana and the South. We don’t dominate in that market much in their core market. Even in Maharashtra, they are much more in the Western and the lower parts of it. We are concentrated in Vidarbha where they have a very modest presence, and so we’ll have to see how it pans out post their, you know, the acquisition because I’ve been reading just like you a lot of analysis because if you were to look at Adani as a combined thing, Adani already has a presence in those areas with their own brands of Ambuja and ACC.
So how much is this Orient going to add to their presence, it’s not easy having a brand integration, what will be their brand strategy, not — those are things. So we don’t see Orient really affecting us significantly as per their existing operation. In future, I saw that they have got lease in Rajasthan, if that comes up, how that will pan out or recently they had — I saw they’re tying up on some fly ash in Madhya Pradesh, in Betul area. All those — those are in future, but similarly, they had a grinding unit planned in Maharashtra, which they gave up, they had a tie-up with Adani maybe since this was in the anvil, that has gone. So those are futuristic. But as on today, Orient and we don’t have much of an overlap.
Prateek Kumar
Thank you, sir. And all the best.
Operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Saket Kapoor from Kapoor & Company. Please go ahead.
Saket Kapoor
[Foreign Speech] sir. And thank you for the opportunity. Saraogi-ji as you mentioned about INR100 crores being the total incentive number that we are factoring in for Mukutban, how much actual cash have we received for the first half? Out of the INR17 crore or the entire balance is also pending.
Aditya Saraogi
See, INR100 crore is for the company, not especially Mukutban. There is a small incentive in some other units also. In the first half, we have received around INR120 crores from Uttar Pradesh.
Sandip Ghose
It’s not from Mukutban boss, you don’t — these incentives don’t happen hand-in-hand, but as soon as [Speech Overlap] the next day you get. Like today, I believe you’re getting income tax response immediately 24 hours, it doesn’t happen in subsidies.
Aditya Saraogi
It comes with a lag.
Sandip Ghose
Lag.
Saket Kapoor
Correct sir. So yes, sir, so what is the closing balance, sir other than whatever we have booked as incentive, how much is still left to be received in the receivable accounts?
Aditya Saraogi
Excluding West Bengal where the matter is under sub judice, it is about INR450 crores. And in fact, in West Bengal also, there has been a development in the quarter. The state government has filed an appeal against the High Court order which has decided the matter in our favor. So that matter has also been dismissed by the Supreme Court. So, currently, the state government does not have any legal records in the matter.
Saket Kapoor
Sir, can you come again? INR450 crore is the figure you mentioned, that is still left to be received, but…
Sandip Ghose
The total — total, if you were to say what is the receivable on account of incentives from various governments as on date it is INR450 crores.
Aditya Saraogi
Excluding West Bengal.
Sandip Ghose
Excluding West Bengal, where we have an additional amount which was under — which was sub judice because the government had contested it. And that contest has been disposed of by the Supreme Court. So the ball is back in West Bengal government’s court. And they will have to — when they settle it is a different matter. So excluding that, it is INR450 crores on which, we see that as a timing issue and not any dispute issue.
Aditya Saraogi
Yes.
Saket Kapoor
Okay. And can you mention that figure also which is under dispute or litigation from the West Bengal government?
Aditya Saraogi
Around INR140 crore.
Saket Kapoor
Around INR140 crores. And now we have an upper hand because of the disposal by Supreme Court.
Sandip Ghose
We were always on an upper hand, we were always on strong ground. Not a question on any upper hand, lower hand.
Saket Kapoor
Okay.
Sandip Ghose
But nothing under hand.
Saket Kapoor
Okay. Thank you, sir. Sir, with — Saraogi-ji for the capital work in progress, the closing balance stands at…
Sandip Ghose
…many questions, Saket, I told you you’re in Calcutta, you can’t take advantage of so many questions.
Saket Kapoor
Sir, last question and then I can come in queue or sir, [Foreign Speech].
Sandip Ghose
You don’t monopolize. Go ahead.
Saket Kapoor
Thank you, sir. Sir, Saraogi-ji the closing balance for capital work in progress is INR558 crores. With Mukutban — sorry, with Kundanganj getting operationalized by first quarter, what will be [Foreign Speech]. And for Kundanganj how much have we spent as of now?
Aditya Saraogi
I can’t give you this figure off-hand. You can connect separately on this, please. Okay?
Saket Kapoor
[Foreign Speech]. Sir, I’ll join the queue and also, sir, in the press release, the update for coal mines are not mentioned, sir. So if you could give some color on…
Aditya Saraogi
[Speech Overlap] we are expecting to start commencement of operations from Q1 of FY26, okay?
Saket Kapoor
Okay. And we are still expecting coal, sir. [Foreign Speech].
Aditya Saraogi
[Foreign Speech].
Saket Kapoor
Currently, sir — currently of our — Bikram coal block is operational I think. So we are expecting…
Aditya Saraogi
Where we are extracting as per the capacity of the block, this is around 2,50,000 tonnes on an annual basis.
Saket Kapoor
Okay. Okay, sir. I’ll join the queue, sir. And I’ll have two or three more follow-ups. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Mangesh from Centrum Broking Limited. Please go ahead.
Mangesh Bhadang
Hello, sir. And thank you for the opportunity. Sir, my question is regarding demand in UP and MP. So I just wanted your views in terms of how much there could have been the demand decline in this quarter on Y-o-Y basis? And was it only because of monsoon and election after-effect or you think — and when do you expect the recovery in the same?
Sandip Ghose
Mangesh, we cannot give you exact — ours are estimated figures, those figures of market decline, you will get it from the analyst figures because today there is no published data in that regard. So we would not like to comment on that. But in terms of causes, it is also money availability because a lot of fund released from the government have got delayed in many places or they’ve got — governments had other priorities. It has gone for different schemes in different places. So some of the fund release has been an issue in both these markets. And that is what has probably delayed some of the state-level development work or development expenditure, which happens because money has probably got more to welfare schemes and other stuff. There has been no elections, as you know, in MP and UP in the last six months. So it’s — that in the overall situation.
Mangesh Bhadang
Okay. And sir, another question was on the pricing front. So we feel that pricing post-August has improved marginally. But what is our current realization compared to the exit of September? Is there any improvement?
Sandip Ghose
I don’t think there is any significant improvement, Mangesh. This is at least more or less it comes. One has not really seen any consistent improvement or improvement which sticks, you know. And I personally don’t expect to see any very significant changes between now and at least till mid-November.
Mangesh Bhadang
Got it, sir. Sir, final question to Saraogi-ji. So given that we would have a very weak free operating cash flow this year because of weak realization. Do we see debt increasing and any target or guidance on debt levels by the end of this year?
Aditya Saraogi
So the debt level, we expect to close around INR3,000 crores — net debt we expect to close around INR3,000 crores. So like our cash from operation has been less than what we had budgeted. But then we have also scaled down our capex. I think earlier we had guided for INR1,000 crores or that also we have gotten down to INR700 crores. So we are calibrating our options also according to the interest.
Mangesh Bhadang
Understood, sir. Thank you, sir.
Operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Rajesh Ravi from HDFC Securities. Please go ahead.
Rajesh Ravi
Hi, sir. I have two questions. First, the margin guidance for second half INR170 odd which you’re looking up — looking-forward to. You know, first half we have done close to INR540 and even if we add up the INR170 our full-year margin would be hardly to the tune of INR620, INR630, you know versus, no, no full-year is. First half we have done INR535 and second half we are looking at INR170 high as opposed to INR700 odd. So the full-year average it work out to be INR620 versus INR800 we have done in FY24. So are you not building any price improvement in the second half or would it…
Sandip Ghose
Of course, we are building in, Rajesh, as we said INR170 is not going to come purely from cost savings. Our cost and other initiatives that we indicated will probably give us about INR70 and rest will come partly from price and a few other things as well. But we are not being bullish enough to say that we are going to get INR200 into the bottom-line from price alone. We are positioning about — because price increase, if I have to get INR100 between now and March-end, you are — that’s an average, okay?
Rajesh Ravi
Correct, sir. Higher price hike beforehand.
Sandip Ghose
So average to get there, even if you would — I don’t want to get into showing you back of the envelope calculation, you see how much it can peak and it’s a regional factor. Others — I’m not questioning other people’s projections. They could be having other regions in mind. We don’t operate in the South where they may be having more. I am looking at the — our specific market, Maharashtra, I told you, I see Maharashtra, I’m being cautious in Maharashtra because of elections and post-election impact because it takes a little time for again governments to settle down, monies to come out, Maharashtra also, there are various welfare schemes and all committed. So I don’t know how soon monies will come and how much impact that will have on the demand and the pricing.
Similarly, I’m being cautious, our core markets is East UP, and the peak season where all of us look at a spurt in volumes and prices is usually, as you know, in this industry from second week of January to February middle, that’s the real time when you find historically cement prices go up sharply. But that’s a time when we are going to see UP some major dislocations, okay, with the Maha Kumbh and everything else. And that time movement becomes an issue and various things.
So we are being perhaps you might say a little extra cautious, but you’d rather be conservative than be foolish and come back to you, you know, cutting a sorry face next when we speak in three months’ time.
Rajesh Ravi
Sure. And on volumes, any thought process what sort of growth, Q2 obviously has been back…
Sandip Ghose
We mentioned that, Rajesh, we are looking at second half about — around 8%, 7% to 8%.
Rajesh Ravi
Okay. And last question, sir, there is two long — large investments sitting on your books, UltraTech and Century Textiles. Cumulatively, if I look at approximately INR700 odd crore value, so is there any thought do the management or the promoters have any willingness or can these be sold-off and used to reduce debt or for some of the efficiency programs?
Aditya Saraogi
There is no embargo in selling these investments. We have the mandate by the Board, we can sell these investments whenever we want to. These are non-strategic investments.
Rajesh Ravi
Okay.
Aditya Saraogi
But we will not sell these to settle or reduce debt. Okay? So if we see that we can deploy these proceeds from sale of these investments into a productive asset, which can give good return those kind of things, at that point of time we will consider.
Rajesh Ravi
Okay, so because we would be doing this Maihar expansion also, so this could come handy.
Sandip Ghose
It would come for various things, Rajesh. This is, you know we would do at a time of our choosing and in terms of the opportunity to — since you have been associated with the company from a very long time, you know that we were sitting on a fairly large treasury balance for a long time till we made our Reliance acquisition. So we did it when — at the right opportunity when we felt it was right in our prudence. Similarly, we’ll take a call on that, but we don’t have any compulsion right now to dilute our debt by selling this. That is certainly a question we can tell you categorically that’s not in terms of our plan.
Rajesh Ravi
Great. Great, sir. That’s all from my end. Thank you. I will come back in the queue.
Operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Girija Ray from YES Securities. Please go ahead.
Girija Ray
Hello. Am I audible?
Operator
Yes, sir, you’re audible.
Girija Ray
Yeah. Thanks for the opportunity. So yeah, see getting incentive as the additional money makes sense and it is really adding to the profitability. But in terms of core business, so if I see in fourth quarter FY24, we have done an EBITDA per tonne of around 974, which is pretty good. And significantly I can see first quarter, second quarter there is a huge decline. Even in fact second quarter FY25, we saw around 50%, 60% of decline from fourth quarter if I compare. So do we — again, fourth quarter will be volume driven quarter. Obviously, volume is higher, then again your EBITDA per tonne will come down. So my question is that, so what kind of projections we can go ahead for fourth quarter FY ’25 EBITDA per tonne, is this a mark we can see somewhere in between 700 to 800 because price again, I do not see much price kind of appreciation in coming near term.
Sandip Ghose
That’s your view. You have to take a view and it’s not also a question of your view versus our view to see the entire thing. We can only give you our point-of-view. First of all, when you are looking at last year fourth quarter to now, obviously you will agree that the drop which you have seen is not isolated for us, already you have seen three, four companies results are declared and we are no exception in that pattern. And in fact, in some ways, from whatever we have seen, you are a better analyst, maybe we have done a tad better than other people in terms of the management of the bottom line in terms of the drop. So — that being one.
Now if you were to compare — to answer one question of yours because last year, last year was very a interesting or I found a slightly odd in a way in the fourth quarter. Historically, in cement from as long as I had been, fourth quarter the surge you see is both on volumes and prices. Last year, fourth quarter was only volume without prices, okay, there was no substantial increase in prices. There was a surge in volume. So now this fourth quarter is a matter of conjecture. When you’re talking of volumes, whether it will be volumes in isolation. If it’s volumes in isolation, not just for us, others who are projecting INR200, where will the INR200 come from? Obviously, that has to come along with a surge in prices. Now for the INR200 what other people are projecting, we don’t see it coming — we would not see it. We would not bet our horses to expect it will be that high. So we have been conservative in this, but we certainly see a price improvement in the last quarter.
And where I see the price improvement coming — without getting more specific, despite some of the other issues which we talked about the elections in Maharashtra or Uttar Pradesh, Prayagraj etc. And what I hinted in the beginning I think the prices today, real abnormal prices are in the non-trade. And if the non-trade prices pick up and people become more — there is more rational pricing in non-trade and especially in the OPC segment, I see you are immediately going to see a positive impact or positive rub-off spillover in the trade segment. And that has happened in the last two months also.
If you see what are the areas where there has been improvement in prices, when we talk of nationally, you don’t see or any kind of price changes between August, September, October, but areas where there has been actually a price increase. Say North has recorded some price increase. The North price increase has essentially come, if you go through, it has come because people have corrected the non-trade prices. Before that non-trade was pulling trade hugely down. Once some amount of sanity was restored and the non-trade prices, trade picked up.
Similarly, we therefore hope that if that phenomenon you see across the geographies, if not across the country, you will start seeing some impact of that coming. And so at least you will get back to the — to normal levels. Right now, I think the prices are depressed below normal. And that will come, and once that level playing field, if we come back to that by November or December end, which is entirely possible, it’s just a matter of, as I said, some sanity getting restored. That happened — last quarter, you are going to see both volume and price increase. People are talking about pent-up demand — pent-up demand will come, with pent-up demand, obviously price will also go. It is not going to be just volumes.
Girija Ray
Sorry to cut you off. So you mean to say the price level which is hovering right now, so this will bottom out since there is no further decline in price — like I can just assuming or is there any kind of other, I mean, to say there is no further decline in price and there might be some chances of momentum go up.
Sandip Ghose
See I think that will be a fair assumption. Things can only improve here. I don’t see further decline happening because whatever disturbances, those are more or less done. Now Diwali over, Chhath will be over, by then your new crops will come in, in a harvesting season money will be there in the system, all of that, labor will return back from the Chhath thing, and harvesting and all that people will go back. You will see — I don’t see therefore certainly scope for a further slide and decline. And I repeat myself again and again, that’s the only conjecture I’m making sticking my neck out. If sanity returns in non-trade prices, which are obviously in the hands of the big players who are big players who participate in non-trade especially on national accounts, etc, you are going to see benefits of a positive wrap-up of that also on trade.
Girija Ray
Fair enough. Sir, my second question is into premium segment, right now it is 71%, it seems right? So — sorry, 61.
Sandip Ghose
61.
Aditya Saraogi
Yes.
Girija Ray
Okay. So this has improved a lot, like it was 51, now it is 61. So…
Sandip Ghose
I wouldn’t call it improvement or it will be wrong on my part as I was trying to clarify earlier, this is strategic. If my — today the prices have come down and if I am selling below capacity for whatever reason I can’t participate, I would focus which is giving me the maximum return. So it’s a combination of product mix and geo mix. If I’m selling in markets which are giving me the geo mix [Indecipherable] best market because it’s close to my operations. And in those areas, if my premium product has a greater pull, I would sell more. I have got nothing against selling anything in the value of the popular segment, okay. But if the value and popular segment, I find there is no [Foreign Speech] happening, and here I have got a thing. I would rather take the INR20, INR25 premium, but I don’t want to vacate that segment. I have — this is a very unique advantage this company has. I don’t know how many people recognize that. We are a company where we have almost equal — which travel between both the segments almost equally. Okay?
Girija Ray
I totally agree with those figures, we are the highest premium segment sell in the industry chains. And that is a good part in our company.
Sandip Ghose
Both sides, boss, if you use my favorite expansion, we are a double-engine company.
Girija Ray
Okay. And lastly, what is the Mukutban utilization rate in this quarter?
Sandip Ghose
Rajesh, let’s move on to the other one. We have given the figures.
Girija Ray
Okay, I’ll get it. Thank you, sir. Thanks for this answer.
Operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Raaj from Arjav Partners. Please go ahead.
Raaj
Hello, am I audible?
Operator
Yes, sir.
Raaj
Sir I just wanted to have full-year growth guidance.
Sandip Ghose
Boss, we have said that boss already, we have said…
Aditya Saraogi
Whatever we have said, that covers…
Sandip Ghose
We will repeat that. Full-year growth guidance we have said in terms of volumes, we have said 3% to 4% and we have given just now, as you heard, our EBITDA also we have given. Thanks.
Raaj
Sorry. You were not clear. Can you repeat it again?
Sandip Ghose
I said volume we have given already, we said about the full-year volume will be about 4%…
Aditya Saraogi
3% to 4%.
Sandip Ghose
3% to 4% is what we have said. And EBITDA also we have given…
Aditya Saraogi
But H2 and you can take it from…
Sandip Ghose
H2, we have told about INR170 over H1, which is about INR530. So you can do your averaging of the two and come to the number. Just like Rajesh did just before your question.
Operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Amit from Axis Capital. Please go ahead.
Amit
Yeah, hi. Thanks for the opportunity. So just wanted to check captive coal mining status and when will you start the captive coal mines? And also with the pet coke pricing now having come off and [Indecipherable] kcal I think pet coke is now almost 1.5. What kind of cost benefits could still come in from the captive coal mines?
Sandip Ghose
Captive coal mines, as already we had informed for the Bikram, already Sial Ghoghri in operation for which we do around 2.5 lakh to 3 lakh tonnes per annum. And for Bikram coal mines, we are going to start — the first coal production is going to start from the Q1 FY26. And pet coke, because our only requirement of the pet coke is only in one plant only and we have reduced the requirement of the pet coke and more we are in the indigenous coal. And wherever there is a change in the prices, we take it into account. And our coal fuel prices you can see in the last quarter is 1.47 paisa per kilo cal, and it will be — if the changes are there, we are not seeing much of changes, maybe slight change will be there depending on the prices of the pet coke which is going in the market now.
Aditya Saraogi
So in terms of the cost differential, our cost from Bikram coal block is expected to be around INR1.10 per 1,000 kilo cal. And the ongoing rate for fuel in the Central region is between 140 and 150. So that is a kind of difference that exists as far as current fuel prices.
Sandip Ghose
Thank you very much. I think that brings us to the last question, and it’s really heartening to see we are ending the day with 150 people on the call. That’s very encouraging. Thank you so much for joining, taking the time out. On a busy day, I see today there were at least three con calls from the cement sector. One in the morning, one now and one after us. So that you took time-out for us. It’s really heartening. Thank you very much.
Operator
[Operator Closing Remarks].