Coromandel International Limited (NSE: COROMANDEL) Q1 2026 Earnings Call dated Jul. 25, 2025
Corporate Participants:
Sankarasubramanian S — Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer
Raghuram Devarakonda — Executive Director
Analysts:
Manish Mahawar — Analyst
Deepak Natarajan — Chief Financial Officer
Prashant Biyani — Analyst
Somaiah Valliyappan — Analyst
Unidentified Participant
Naushad Chaudhary — Analyst
Jayshree Bajaj — Analyst
Ankur Periwal — Analyst
Ajit Darda — Analyst
Viraj Kacharia — Analyst
S. Ramesh — Analyst
Himanshu Binani — Analyst
Presentation:
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to Kora Mundal International Limited 1Q FY ’26 Post-Results Conference Call. 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. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touchstone phone. I now hand the conference over to Mr Manish Mahawar. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Manish Mahawar — Analyst
Thank you. Thank you,. On behalf of Antique Stock Broking, warm welcome to all the participants on the 1Q FY ’26 earnings call of International. Today, we have Mr Sankra Subramanian as Managing Director and CEO; Dr Raguram, Executive Director, CPC Bio Product and Retail; Mr Deepak Natrajan, CFO on the call. Without further ado, I would like to hand over the call to Mr Sandra for opening remarks, post which we will open the floor for Q&A. Thank you, and over to you, Sankar.
Sankarasubramanian S — Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer
Thank you. Thanks, Manish. Good afternoon, everyone. And I’ll give a brief on the overall business environment we experienced during the year, followed by company’s performance, and thereafter we can take your questions. On the agriculture scenario after an early onset of Southwest monsoon in May, received above-normal range during the first-half of the season. As on-date, we have received 1 or 5% of the long period average rainfall. While regional variation exists, there has been good recovery, especially over the last four tonights and overall scenario remains positive. All-India improvement is almost 5% over the long period average. During the month of June, there has been some mismatch in the rainfall distribution, especially in the Southern states and that has really caught down in the last two weeks. Capacities are also up from 38% last year to 61% up to last week and with healthy levels across all regions.
The South, which is a key market for, 70% of the capacity has been reached in the current year as compared to 48% of last year giving promising outlook for the crop results LT crop acreages happened so-far moved up by 4%, coming specific to individual crops, rice has grown by 13% and core cediums by 14% and there has been a negative growing in cotton and oil seeds. So overall we have received we have achieved so-far 70 million crop sewing as against the current volume of overall 109 million hectares, which shows 70% of the happens. On the policy front, the government has provided strong support for farm income through increased minimum support prices for credit 2025 and direct income transfer schemes such as PM and, another. So all these are all progressing as planned.
Cabinet has recently approved CEO scheme to focus on improving incomes in 100 districts having low productivity, cropping intensity and credit disbursement through improvement in crop diversification, post-harvest storage, irrigation infra and credit access. During the quarter, the government approved the continuation of the modified interest scheme under the scheme apart from 1.5% of interest provided to eligible lending institutions, farmers making prepayment of loans will be eligible for additional incentive thereby reducing their interest-rate and KCC loan to 4%. Specific to fertilizer policy, government has been ensuring adequate availability of DAP, has been engaging with the various global players. Our government delegation visited Saudi recently and secured a long-term supply of close to 3.1 million tonnes for the next few years. This will be extremely useful as India imports close to 5 million tons to 6 million tonnes of DAP.
Considering the importance of DAP requirements, the government has also came up with additional compensation for DAP beyond certain threshold levels. We have announced in the early part of Karis that is likely to come — continue for the second-quarter as well. On the industry performance, all key raw materials witnessed firmness in Q1, process phosphates like DAP continued to climb as continued absence of Chinese and lesser supply from Russia has significantly tightened the market supply for DAP. And there has been a shortfall in supply from China so-far that has been made-up from sourcing DAP from the rest of the world, in-line with the increase in global prices of DAP and also India CFO price of DAP, phosph price has also significantly gone up from $1153 we had in Q1 and has been concluded at $12.58 for Q2.
Domestic phosphate industry registered strong quarter, driven by improved sentiment, improved consumption of fertilizers has gone up by 9% to 4.5 million tonnes. Yearly monsoon arrival, lower level of inventory and higher sewings contributed to this improved consumption trend. In PK segment continued to grow well and constituted 65% share in the overall sales. The last year trend of increased demand for NPKs replacing DAP augurs well for India, especially considering the fact NPK provides a balanced nutrition much required for the crop as against DAP. On the supply-side, production import of were up by 5%, 9%. Production continued to remain healthy at 37 lakh tonnes for the quarter for DAP and NPK. A lot of efforts from industry as well as from the government, the import of DAP managed to move-up in the last few weeks, and the first quarter witnessed 19 lakh tons as against last year 17.6 lakh tonnes.
Overall, the primary sales has gone up by 9% at the industry level, mainly driven by NP/NP case, which has grown by 34% from 22 lakh tons to 29 lakh tonnes, whereas DAP registered de-growth. This indicates the former preference for balanced nutrition and the charges they have made depending on the availability in-spite of the fact the DAP pricing continues to remain low as against higher NPK prices. It’s heartening to note that single super phosphate has witnessed robust growth of 25%, moving up from 9.8 to 12.2 lakh tons and urea remain at a marginal increase of 12% over the last year. Potash consumption as primary sales have moved up, but imports came down considerably due to delay in price negotiation which have subsequently settled at a very competitive price in comparison to China price and that supplier for that in the coming months.
While the import for the first-quarter is lower at 71%, consumption moved up by 46% to 4.6 lakh tons. Coming to agrochemicals, globally there has been a reduction in the channel inventory compared to last year, pricing pressure on certain molecules has improved compared to last year, but still pricing pressure persist in the current year as well. But however, favorable monsoon conditions in the domestic market really aided in widespread spraying coverage across the regions, generating demand for crop protection. With the overall in the marketplace, farmers have started resorting to high-end products like specialty fertilizers products which have seen during this quarter. Coming to company’s performance during this quarter, our performance actually seen in the context of overall environment. Due to the early onset of monsoon, the increased demand and crop sewings improved the demand for the agri-inputs, whether it’s or specialties and organic.
But at company-level, the performance across business segments has been quite healthy, mainly driven by operational excellence, procurement efficiencies and very effective marketing communication. Our plants operated at full capacity of 8.4 lakh tons in Q1 registering 6% volume growth. We continue to operate our newly commissioned sulfuric acid plant at 100% plus capacity utilization and our phosphoric acid volumes are also up by 23%. Lot of digital analytics intervention improving the uptime of our plans in both and was really helpful in increasing the throughput efficiency, conversion cost-reduction and the company has been leveraging effectively digital tools to manage and maintain operational effectiveness in their plants. The production of NPK DAP moved up from 7.88 to 8.37 lakh tons, registering growth of 6%. Acid moved up by 23% during this quarter with resumption of the plant also coming back on-track.
As you all know, we announced backward integration projects of acid sulfuric acid and the project is progressing well and almost we have completed 70% of the project milestone in terms of as well as civil construction. The plant is likely to be commissioned in Q4 of this current financial year. The company’s project at BMCC has significantly increased its throughput and has stabilized its operation and helping in meeting company’s stock requirement. As you all know, the company is currently holding 53.8% stake in the mining company at Senegal and yesterday Board has approved increasing its stake by additional 17.7% to reach 71.5%. Operation Senegal is of extreme importance for the new plant which is coming up at Kakinada, where we plan to use Senegal rough meeting 40% of the new plant requirements.
So we feel the improved operational efficiency at Senegal and increase the throughput in the coming years will help us to secure at least captive rock sourcing close to 25% of our annual requirements. Our granulation project that is expected to add 7.5 lakh tons of additional capacity is on-track and is likely to be commissioned in 26. To support this company is setting up a bagging facility also which will help in reducing operational costs and facilitate smooth movement of the goods. During this quarter, as you all know, the signed a long-term agreement with of Saudi Arabia, a leading fertilizer player, mainly to secure DAP shipments. We have also been contracting ammonia shipments for our operations at. On the marketing front, achieved record primary sales volume of 11 lakh tons, marking a 31% growth and establishing itself as a leading market of — marketer of fertilizers in the country with a improved market-share of close to 18% on the NPK segments.
Share of unique grades, which differentiates us from the rest of the players stand at 34%, improved from last year level of 31%, continued to expand in Central and Northern India, aligning with our strategy to diversify markets and prepare ourselves for the upcoming increase in capacity. The POS consumption improved by 46% during this quarter to 7 lakh tons, reflecting improved form level engagement activities in the favorable agri environment. The market-share on the consumption basis has improved to 16% as compared to 12% of last year. With the better price realization on the Rabi produce, the market collections for the business has been quite robust and also we are happy to note that the government has been prompted in the subsidiary dues as well. SAP business has recorded a volume growth of 20% to 1.9 lakh tonnes with special focus on differentiated products which are unique to, the share of which has reached 37%. We also been processing with our drone strain services under the brand of Gromo Drive and first-quarter, we have covered 25,000 acres.
The has received highly encouraging response from the farming community and we are planning to double the fleet size of drones by procuring them from Daksha and we hope to reach at least half a million acre of drone spraying in the current year. Is taking this initiative more to provide comprehensive solution to the farming community at the same time helping preserving and conserving the water as drone spraying can cut-down water requirement by almost one 10th, 90% can be cut-down and can be reduced to one-tenth of the total water otherwise required per-acre. Business of the company had a strong quarter registering volume growth of 12%. Our organic fertilizer volume has improved by 29%. Our Nano DAP business has made a good progress and we have been very, very systematic in creating awareness campaigns across India, carried out a lot of field demos, presented the research drive themselves to the farmers, generating the demand from their side and our focus has been to educate the farmers to adopt this product or partial substitution of DAP, which is also not available in adequate volumes.
Going-forward, the business aims to broaden its portfolio from institutional partnerships and tap into export markets as well to enhance its market presence. The company is also looking at diversifying the product portfolio by looking at Nano and NPKs as well. The company has also launched Nano urea through its retail outlets during this quarter and will continue to responsibly educate the farmers in appreciating the use efficiency of this technology. During the quarter, the signed a definitive agreement to form a joint-venture with for the manufacture of — sale of manufacturing sale of gypsum-based green building material. This JV enables synergies in adjacent areas by converting its industrial byproduct gypsum into value construction material. Protection and oil segments of the company delivered robust set of numbers in Q1, revenue growing up by 31% to INR728 crores and EBIT moved up by 77% to INR11 crores. In exports, we brought in differentiation in terms of our mantra margins, volumes, target markets and has received very good response in major consuming markets as the demand for the product has moved up due to its extension on May 12.
Domestic market benefited from nearly monsoon arrival that resulted in growth across B2B and B2C segments. Business introduced 10 new products during the quarter, including one in-licensing product. We continue to focus on increasing the share of new products. Overall, three insecticides, three hepicides, three bioproducts and one PGRs were launched, including one in-licensing and three formulations. On the in-licensing product, is a globally second in-license from one of our strategic partners. We will continue to drive this business and we have also started focusing more intensely on the domestic formulation segment and expanded our geographies by significantly improving our presence in additional 40 territories and also increasing our field strength. All this will play-out in the next coming quarters in terms of increase the share of our domestic formulation business. On the Bio business, there has been a revival in-demand for the sites in the global markets, especially from US and they continue to receive the orders from Europe for the bio products. But the business has been focusing on divestifying the portfolio beyond and they are in the various stages of registering the new products.
And the business has also created a separate marketing team as it involves concept selling to educate the farming community to adopt the bio products and we are also working on manufacturing partnerships with the global players for manufacturing the product in India. In July 2025 received a competition commission approval for the newly-acquired Nagal and is awaiting city clearance to launch OpenOffer. Once we get the approval, we’ll conclude the transaction of buying out the promoter stake and complete the acquisition formalities including OpenOffer. With improved liquidity and market sentiment, business is doing well and will try and realize the synergy benefits envisaged earlier at the time of acquisition.
On the retail business, the business has reported strong performance in Q1 with growth in revenue and profitability across various segments. 73 new stores were opened during the quarter and business is on-track to increase the store count by adding 400 stores during the year. The business is enhancing its customer outreach through strengthened e-commerce and digital platforms and we are the only player to make a door delivery of key agri input products besides providing spraying services. With that initial remarks, I will hand over to Deepak to take you through the company’s financial performance.
Over to you, Deepak.
Deepak Natarajan — Chief Financial Officer
Thank you, Shankar. Good afternoon, everyone. The company recorded a consolidated total income of INR7,126 crores during the quarter versus INR4,783 crores registered in Q1 of last year, registering a growth of 49%. The increase in revenues has been mainly on account of higher subsidiary rates and volume growth across all our business segments. The subsidy share of the business stands at 83% during the quarter compared to 81% in the previous year’s same quarter. In terms of profitability, the consolidated EBITDA for the quarter stands at INR782 crores against INR506 crores in the previous year, registering a growth of 55%. The increase in EBITDA is driven mainly by volume growth, higher subsidy rates and margin expansion in crop protection and all the other businesses.
The profitability share of subsidy business stands at 68% during the quarter. In terms of subsidy, during the quarter, the company received INR1,300 crores towards subsidy claims from the government compared to INR987 crores in the previous quarter. The government has been prompt in clearing the subsidy dues, as of today, we have received our subsidy claims till June-end. The subsidy outstanding as at quarter-end June 30 was INR2,911 crores in terms of ForEx, during Q1, the rupee traded in a range of INR83.76 to 86.91 rupees to a dollar. Continues to follow a prudent and a conservative approach of hedging our ForEx exposure and that has immensely helped in limiting the impact of our currency volatility. Thank you. Thank you for your interest in Coromandel. Looking forward to your interactions. Thank you. Thank you.
Questions and Answers:
Operator
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 your touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue. You may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Prashant Biyani from Elara Capital. Please go ahead.
Prashant Biyani
Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity. Sir, congrats on great set of numbers and congrats on being elected the Co-Chairman of FAI. Sir, my first question is on the China specialty fertilizer band, do we have plans to start manufacturing specialty fertilizer in a big way in India and capture the market leadership here as well? And secondly, on rare earth minerals, do we have any plans to enter this space of rare earth mineral extraction?
Sankarasubramanian S
Thank you. Very insightful question. Both are very, very relevant. Very equally concerned on the supply of raw materials for the UK business, evaluating opportunities of creating capacity as a player in terms of the infrastructure, our ability to reuse the products which are generated out of this are quite helpful and we are evaluating the investment to create capacities internally for our captive consumption as well as it provides opportunity for us to export Europe to Europe and various other NPK players globally and also to meet the domestic demand of the rest of the players in the country. We are seriously evaluating. We will soon hear something happen when the proposal get specified. On the rare minerals, we have not our mind at this point of time.
Somaiah Valliyappan
In fact, we want to do valuation. We are trying to focus also mainly on the office-based derivatives. They are not looked at exact number well. Sure. Sir, your view on what could be the NBF subsidy for H2, not the number, but directionally how it could be because internationally we are seeing raw-material prices have been going up. So logically subsidy should go up.
Prashant Biyani
And sir, on BMCC, what is the current output and how much do we plan to scale it up to? Our earlier plans were to scale it up to 5 lakh, but do we plan to scale it further beyond 5 lakh, and by when?
Sankarasubramanian S
If everything goes well this year, ’25, ’26, two, three months of rainy season, we don’t operate. Rest of the months we should come closer to 300,000 to 400,000 tons per annum, which is a very remarkable achievement being the first year of capacity, we are reaching 100%. Hopefully, we should double it in the next two years. We can do it with not much significantly. We’ll try and focus on.
Prashant Biyani
Sure, sir, thank you so much for your time.
Operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Somaiah V from Avendus Spark. Please go ahead.
Somaiah Valliyappan
Yeah, thanks for the opportunity, sir. Sir, first question is on-market. So the slightness has been there for some time. Do we see any incremental software from global players should change.
Operator
Sorry to interrupt, sir. Sir, your voice is not clear.
Somaiah Valliyappan
I hope I’m audible now.
Operator
Yes, sir.
Somaiah Valliyappan
Hello. Yeah, yeah. The question is on the DAP market. This has been for some time now. So do we see in the next six months or nine months any major supply that could come from global players by adding capacity or anything that could change in this market that could a bit in terms of global supply or the existing prices can continue for some more time in your view?
Sankarasubramanian S
See, China is one of the major source for India in the last few years and completely dried up this current year, so that is creating the event supply mismatch. But we are confident that from Middle-East outsources increased volumes can come through and make-up for the volume drop from China and that should considerably use the situation. While there can be a timing mismatch going-forward with the capacity expansion happening in Middle-East, we are reasonably confident we should not face any challenge on DAP availability going forward.
And domestically, the companies are also creating capacities which will come up on-stream in the next two years. And with the stable policy and the reasonable market price and also the of the farmers to make a switch from DAP to NPKs, this will get balanced out. And also globally, commodity prices are not going to go up for various reasons and I don’t see any reason why for India loan DAP price should go up. So I have a strong view if we take for DAP for the forthcoming rubby season, DAP prices should soften from there on.
Somaiah Valliyappan
Got it, sir. Sir, second question is on the margin. So we earlier had guided — I mean, in terms of our expectation around the manufactured margins of around 5K per tonne. Updated thoughts on that? That’s the first part. Second, in the current quarter, the quarter gone by Q1, I mean, what was the impact of sulfur sulfuric acid prices directionally because I think in Q4 you had alluded because sulfur gains are higher at close to $300.
So how did things change on a quarter-on-quarter basis and how things stand? I mean, are we seeing the sulfur market easing out a bit or still it continues to remain tight? That’s the second part. Third-part to the margin question itself, as you mentioned, phosph acid prices have gone up. Does this warrant a price hike from our side to maintain margins what we are looking out for FY ’26?
Sankarasubramanian S
And in respect of sulfur sulfuric acid price, it continued to remain foam. Our sulfuric acid is around $120 and sulfur prices peak to $300 per started softening now, has come down to $23. So we do hope that sulfur prices have reached the peak and can only come down from here on. But this is our view on sulfur and sulfur carphid. On the manufactured margin, our normative EBITDA of multi-ton of INR5,000 will sustain during this year. That’s our hope and we’ll strive to do that. In terms of the phosphoric acid price change, it’s in line with the global commodity prices, especially DAP increase and this may warrant some correction in certain NPK grades because we should be aware of the fact that both phosphoric acid and potash has gone up during this quarter. So that may warrant some correction in NPA and PK grades, which industry has been taking and will continue to take.
Of course, DAP price change on account of DAP phosphoric acid and imported DAP prices will be compensated in the form of subsidy. That’s what we see at this point and just one more clarification. So this sulfur asset impact on a Q-o-Q is going good, it has been a negative impact. Just to interrupt, sir. So your audio quality is not clear. No, sorry. Just one small clarification, sir. Regarding the sulfur sulfuric acid impact in the quarter, compared to Q4, it would have had a negative impact because prices have gone up. Just directionally, just want to understand.
Yeah, it has impacted the value gap on captive phosphoric acid because we consume sulfur to produce sulphuric acid which turn used for phosphoric acid and import of acid prices also gone up to that extent there has been a marginal reduction in the value addition, but with phosphoric acid going up again, the value gap will widen further going into next quarter as well. So in terms of our procurement efficiency of long-term contracts, some of the formulas are slightly different from spot purchases, we are fairly getting insulated in terms, that’s what I mentioned in my opening remarks as well on the procurement efficiency. So we have been managing it quite well. Sure, sir. Thanks a lot.
Operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Puran from Oracle Capital Service. Please go ahead.
Unidentified Participant
Thank you for the opportunity, sir. So my question was on the — like is using different rate of crop to produce acid. So just wanted to understand that does it impact the conversion of conversion rate of block to acid rock to acid and what is like what is the current conversion of to acid? And like as we — like in the annual report also like we are doing research on like how to use that different rate of lock.
So does that it has include our conversion rate or conversion of rock asset has improved over the five years. Just wanted to know that.
Sankarasubramanian S
Good question. Coromandel is differentiating the rest of the player in the industry, mainly by focusing on sourcing rocks from multiple sources. So at any point of time, we have four grades of rocks and four grades of acids we use in our plant driven by the necessity because our volumes going up, our demand for acid goes up. And that is where our pilot plants at came handy in terms of trying out various blends of rock and different proportion and different P2FA countries.
And the new plant which is coming up in is also being designed to handle low-grade rocks and the methology of the machinaries asustain our value on re accordingly tuned to handle low-grade rocks. Once we design it for low-grade rock, the higher person can give better throughput. So this has been taken care of and that’s a core of. At any point of time, we use more than three grades of rocks to produce without compromising on the output, without compromising on the quality. And that’s the in-house R&D we focus on and trying to maintain and sustain our value phosphoric acid.
Unidentified Participant
And like can you give us like what is the current conversion rate, like how much rock we require to produce as like blended, just want a division.
Sankarasubramanian S
So roughly it can take around 3.5 to 3.75 tons of rock may be required per ton of acid and that depends on the P2 of a. Suppose we use low-grade, it may go to-4 to 4.25 tons. It will use high-grade will come to 3.05 on a blended basis, we can take this out-of-network.
Unidentified Participant
Okay. Thank you so much, sir. And my next question was on the — let us — has the largest deposit network among year. So just wanted to know that what is our port in our value chain and like as I have met the like Gromo retailer. So he said that now momentally shifting to direct delivery, direct delivery to farmers. So like conversion is like from the last five years. So like is there any cost-improvement or this cost-saving from direct divid to for farmers?
Sankarasubramanian S
I didn’t understand the first part of it. Can you please repeat the first part of the question initially?
Unidentified Participant
So like is the largest airport network like depot network over here in India.
Sankarasubramanian S
So retail, retail network, are you talking about retail network?
Unidentified Participant
No, depot, depot, deport.
Sankarasubramanian S
Yeah, no. So does your worry on the door delivery, we started this initiative in the current last two quarters. We have been doing it to ensure that the farmers get delivery of the products like an urban consumer and this is started a pilot-scale is picking-up momentum and this is aided by our e-commerce platform, which we created to deliver all the agri input products at the of the farmers.
So we are piloted in few disease walking well. We’ll be scaling up, and we also have our own micro more platform on which the farmers are — can place an order, the delivery can be made. So this is picking up, while it may not be a value accruity in terms of the cost versus additional margin, but it provides customer lock-in for us and we feel as part of agri solution to the farming community, we should facilitate this. So we will try to expand this to many markets and we have seen the positive benefit of this as well.
Unidentified Participant
Okay. Thank you much. Thank you so much.
Operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Naushad Chaudhary from Aditya Mutual Funds. Please go ahead.
Naushad Chaudhary
Hi, thank you and congrats on a good set of numbers. A few questions and clarification. First on the — as we are expanding in non-South market, can the volume growth also be attributed to channel filling as well?
Sankarasubramanian S
But consumption also has grown well. While I agree with you, we grown beyond South market, we have done volumes in North markets, but they are all on cash basis and collection has been good and the consumption also happened consumption share also has gone up during this quarter.
Naushad Chaudhary
And what is the goods return policy you follow?
Sankarasubramanian S
There is no concept of goods return. In crop protection, we have a framework, it’s not very-high. It’s not very significant. We don’t push volumes. We only place it to the extent of the demand. And some key specialties, there are no returns. Wherever it is required depending on the monsoon failure and considerations, we do consider goods return that is restricted only to crop protection business. So don’t have to undually worry about the first-quarter, whether it’s a good sale, which has happened driven the volumes. They are all quality sales will be back to consumptions.
Naushad Chaudhary
Sure. And second, on the prices of and both and because we are backward integrated, ideally it should have helped us in terms of the EBITDA per ton, right, because these two prices have gone up, they are backward integrated and the finished product prices would get existed accordingly. So it should be good for us.
Sankarasubramanian S
Yes and no.
Naushad Chaudhary
Okay. Can you elaborate on this? And if are you in a position to quantify how much it would — it would have helped?
Sankarasubramanian S
Volatile commodity prices, one single factor can instance with a multiple factor. How do you optimize your rock usage, how do you source ahead of time and how do you price your end-products? It’s completely dynamic. On a normative basis, we ensure that we get that average EBITDA of INR5,000 what we have been talking about. So sometime it goes on margin, sometimes it goes up but on an annualized basis that is what we aim for. And also besides these cost factors we also work on improving our productivity throughput.
We have set-up a digital excellence center in where industrial 4.0, we have connected all the plants and sensors and we track the performance, we improve the uptime of misteries. So those sort of efficiency improvement and productivity improvement is always helping us to expand the margins. So there are multiple factors we try to work on to mitigate the impact from high volatility in commodity prices.
Naushad Chaudhary
Sure. On the subsidy outstanding number, if I look at as a percentage of revenue, historically, it remains around 30%, 35% of the quarterly number versus this quarter it looks around 41% despite very-high base quarter revenue. Is there anything to read or worry here on the subsidy side?
Sankarasubramanian S
No, first-quarter the primary sale is higher and the consumption is low because the season starts the third, 4th-quarter of fourth week of May. So it’s a function of channel inventory, which is there at the end-of-the quarter. But once the consumption begins included, we can see a significant reduction in the channel.
Naushad Chaudhary
And last on the subsidy and non-subsidy EBITDA mix, if you can share.
Sankarasubramanian S
I think it’s around 65% to 67% subsidy business as against last year of 70. There has been significant improvement in our subsidy during this period last quarter.
Naushad Chaudhary
Thank you so much. All the best.
Sankarasubramanian S
Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Bajaj from Asset Managers. Please go ahead.
Jayshree Bajaj
Hello, sir. Thank you for the opportunity. My question now remains is like earlier you have said that the regulatory approval of acquisition will come in-quarter two of this year. So is there any update? And we are planning for the capacity — we are working on capacity expansion like expansion and multi-product plant, asset plant and this acquisition also. So — and the company is working on zero net — net-debt to equity ratio.
So can we — like in future, the debt will be required in this FY ’26?
Sankarasubramanian S
Will come in. In terms of the NACL, we have got the competition Commission approval and we are waiting for a clearance and we hope we get this in Q2 and we should be able to complete the transaction. This is as far as the is concerned. In terms of the project capex, what you said, yes, we have committed quite a few capex and been implementing close to INR2,000 crores will be spending that will be dipping out-of-the surplus what we have generated over the period of time. And also we are investing in the acquisition.
So at some stage company may have to resort to long-term funding, especially considering the fact interest-rate on long-term funding is at the lowest level. So we’ll be looking at debt per se is not bad as soon as we have the right investment decisions. We’ll be more than keen to support this with the debt instrument which provide necessary tax cred as well.
Jayshree Bajaj
Okay, sir. And is there any strategic plan you’re working on crop protection — crop protection segment?
Sankarasubramanian S
Yes. Yes, as part of the strategy only we have acquired in NACL. We are also looking to expand our product portfolio. We have been launching new products. Last year, we have done 10 products. This year, first-quarter, we launched a ton new products. Our aim would be to get more in-license unique molecules, nine three registrations and we have created a product pipeline. We are also trying to increase the formulation branded business in domestic market from the current levels. On a combined basis, we want to be a significant player in the formulation business as well. And multipurpose plant capacity creation, what we have announced two quarters before, we are trying to evaluate the feasibility of looking at facilities in before we commit and separate capex. Our aim would be to grow CPC business in the coming years. And all our initiatives investments will be towards that.
Jayshree Bajaj
Okay, sir. Thank you. Thank you. Thank. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Ankur from Axis. Please go ahead.
Ankur Periwal
Yeah, hi, sir. Thanks for the opportunity and congratulations on good set of numbers. First question on the crop protection side with NACL being under our fold as well effectively. What are your thoughts in terms of ramping-up, whether it is in terms of the product portfolio that we have or it is the geographical network? And along with that, your thoughts on expansion into the other products on the specialty nutrient side or the water-soluble fertilizer side?
Sankarasubramanian S
On the NACL, as I mentioned, we have a complementary set of active ingredients except for one molecule rest of the products different and they have a different tie-up — customer tie-up. We have in different geographies. But to that extent, we will continue to do to improve overall combined turnover in the global markets. On the domestic side, again, they have very strong presence in the Northern market. We have significant presence across Japan India. So therefore have strong brands. We try to see how best we can leverage on a combined basis to increase the presence in the formulation market. India is a sizable place.
We will talent the we can do it. Capacity creation will try and put up a new plant only after exploring opportunities of leveraging the current facilities in both the company. Also on the R&D front, we could synergize the efficiency and also the technology what we have. They have some coordination chemistry which we can leverage effectively. We have some byproduct coming up from our phosphates and which can be leveraged in future for developing chemistry based agrochemicals and for other applications. We have quite a few areas where we can work together and take the value up. This is as an agrochemicals on the specialty nutrients, we have doubled our — which is the sulfur capacity last year commissioned the plant. We are also looking at expanding our water-soluble range by introducing new products.
As I spoke sometime back, the raw-material security we made to start investing in some of the key raw materials required for manufacturing water-soluble, which not only provide raw-material security for our products, but also create new opportunities to participate in the global market requirements as well. On the bioside, we are trying to expand the product portfolio to go beyond and we are introducing microbials. We are strengthening our field teams into increase their volume of sales between India and exports. So we have ambitious growth plans on specialty nutrients and bioproducts and we are looking for partnerships in this area to bring in R&D, to introduce new products and organic volume, we have increased our presence across various product ranges.
And we are also looking to put up a granulation facility for specialty granulations, which includes and other-related specialty products. So we have concrete game plan to grow these two segments. You will see the results in the coming quarters.
Ankur Periwal
Sure, sir. Just one follow-up on that. So for all this expansion, the INR2,000 crore capex that we have envisaged for us for, let’s say, this financial year FY ’26, this will be over and above this or large part of this is already covered in this capex.
Sankarasubramanian S
Sorry, can you please initially missed out that point?
Ankur Periwal
Yeah, no worries. So the expansion that we are looking at across these product areas, this will be an incremental capex, which will be over and above the INR2,000 crore capex that we had called out for. Is that the right assumption?
Sankarasubramanian S
Yes, you can.
Ankur Periwal
Sure. And broadly, if you can quantify what sort of investments are we looking at here over a maybe two-year, three-year window? That is one. And secondly, we have also set-up an entity for the newest technicals at Dahej. So if you can put some more light over there.
Sankarasubramanian S
Yeah. So investment can be — we are yet to quantify it may be in the range of INR300 crore to INR500 crores across various product categories in these business segments I spoke about. On Dahej facility, what sort of technical put up the facility will depend on the new product registrations which are coming through the global markets. It will be a multipurpose facility with fungibility on switching off from one active ingredient to another one. We are in the evaluation stage. We’ll take a call once we up on the product portfolio.
Ankur Periwal
Just last — one follow-up if I may. You initially mentioned on the BMCC annual run-rate, the rock which is getting supplied to India. I missed that number. If you can help the annual run-rate that we are working at right now the rock phosphate supply from BNCC for us?
Sankarasubramanian S
This year, as you said can be between 300,000 to 400,000 and the next two years.
Ankur Periwal
Sure. Okay. That’s helpful, sir. Thank you and all the best.
Operator
Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Riju from Antique Stock Broking. Please go-ahead.
Unidentified Participant
Hi, sir. Thanks for the opportunity. If I look at your numbers for this quarter, so there is a sharp jump-in the depreciation. This was mainly on account of the DNCC acquisition that we have done in the March or is there any other components there?
Sankarasubramanian S
A good observation. This is due to consolidation of BNCC, which has become a subsidiary company and this mainly relates to amortization of all burden exposures, which follows under the mines accounting, it gets amortized over the mine life. It gets classified under the depreciation.
Unidentified Participant
Okay. So the INR120 crore kind of a run-rate, so that is going to be there for the full-year or how we can look at this number?
Sankarasubramanian S
Yeah, it will it can be estimated around that level if we can say that on a consolidated basis, only thing is in the second-quarter when there is a monsoon, there may be a marginal reduction in the production level. So to that extent it can come down, again, it will get normalized in Q3 and Q4.
Unidentified Participant
Yeah, got it. And if you could help us understanding the revenue run-rate for BMCC, it will be very much same.
Sankarasubramanian S
What is it?
Unidentified Participant
Yeah, revenue run-rate, please?
Sankarasubramanian S
For the quarter or full year>
Unidentified Participant
We are talking about. For the full-year, for the full-year.
Sankarasubramanian S
Depends on the volume, right? If you take depending on the volume, whatever we take, roughly you can take around INR350 crores to INR400 crores.
Unidentified Participant
Understood. Yeah. And in terms of our subsidy business, so this quarter you have seen a sharp improvement in terms of overall EBITDA for the — for the subsidy business. So how much that was driven by the inventory gains, if you could give some light on that.
Sankarasubramanian S
So always as a company ahead of the season, we stock up material and there’ll be some inventory gains definitely which flow-in into the quarter. And again, no, it’s a function of quantum of raw materials we hold. And first-quarter always has this advantage of the lower raw materials, especially when the prices go up. So that has slown in this quarter, but also you should appreciate the fact there has been increase in the fresh raw-material purchases as well. So to that extent the inventory gains have been offset by the increase in raw-material prices of sulfur, sulfuric acid,, exchange rate. So many factors are at play. So it gets normalized, very difficult to put a number separately, but I would say — I would say that average EBITDA remains fair at this.
Unidentified Participant
Understood. And sir, one last boot keeping question, if you could clarify. In terms of our corporation business, how much was the domestic business and how much was the export?
Sankarasubramanian S
Overall company-level?
Unidentified Participant
And for the crop protection business.
Sankarasubramanian S
Crop protection is exports, 60% is domestic B2B and formulation.
Unidentified Participant
Okay, okay. Okay. Thank you, sir. Thanks a lot.
Sankarasubramanian S
Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Ajit from Nirzar Enterprises. Please go ahead.
Ajit Darda
Hi, sir. Hello.
Operator
Sorry to interrupt, sir. Can you please be more louder?
Ajit Darda
Yeah. Am I audible, sir?
Operator
Yes, sir, you’re audible now.
Ajit Darda
Sir, my first question is on ask geographical expansion, which we have mentioned in our annual report, that we will be entering into or we have entered into Central and other states of India like UP, Rajasthan, MP. Sir, what is our strategies in these states considering the fact that we will have additional transportation costs. So how competitive we will be in terms of pricing?
And do we have any plans to set-up a plant anywhere in these states of India? And my second question is on, sir, urea prospect. So can you be served as replacement for conventional urea and are there any plans to enter into the urea manufacturing in that? Thanks.
Sankarasubramanian S
On the expansion to northern markets, as I’ve been telling in the past as well, we are coming up with the additional capacity at close to 7,50,000 tons and we are developing the seed markets in Central and Northern India to move these materials from to markets like, MP, UP. And as you know, in the current policy framework, railway freight is reimbursed by the government. So to that extent our MRP will be as competitive as any other players in the state. We don’t have immediate plans to set-up any facility in the North, but we do have SSP facilities in many of the Northern states and we have been doing business. This moment of NPKs to these markets will be a portfolio expansion.
We do sell crop protection, we sell specialty nutrients, we sell single superphosphate with that we are adding in PKs now. And in terms of mix you had one more query, I remember it. Can you please repeat the last?
Ajit Darda
Urea phosphate product. Is it reflexible? And do we have plans to enter into urea manufacturing?
Sankarasubramanian S
No, urea phosphate does not require that much of volume or capacity. We don’t have any immediate plans to set-up any urea manufacturing, which is quite capital-intensive and that is less return. So we have no plans at this point of time. With regard to urea SSP, we can import urea what is required for manufacturing this. Requirements are not very-high. We have set-up the facility in and now in we are looking to replicate this in as well. And the ratio of NP in this grade IS-5 is to 16, which is sort of a loyal version of DAP.
We can call this a shorter DAP. 200 banks of VASSP can replace DAP and that is why we have been educating the farmers about it and this product can be efficiently manufactured at a competitive cost and make it affordable for the farmers as well and we can avoid import of DAP which is not available as of now. This is our strategy behind this and we will whatever we are required for this will be imported by us.
Ajit Darda
Thank you.
Operator
The next question is from the line of Viraj from SIMPL. Please go ahead.
Viraj Kacharia
Yeah, most of my questions have been answered. Just to somewhere earlier in the opening of the call, you said that the prices of BAP is even higher than some of the NPK products we sell-in the marketplace. So in that perspective, if you look at our share of unit grades, one would think that you would have seen a much more higher offtake of those products in Q1 vis-a-vis you know what traditionally you would have sold. So while we have seen an increase, one would think probably even more higher offtake. So just trying to understand was supply a constraint on our side, which we couldn’t maximize or was there any other reason?
That is one. And second is, something you just said to the previous participant on the urea manufacturing or even for, say, NPK. Now globally, if you can just give some positive, are you seeing any major expansion happening in NPK or in urea space globally? And internally for us, if we were to look at manufacturing setup in either of the two, say hypothetically not what you know what milestones or what parameters you will be looking for before deploying capital?
Raghuram Devarakonda
No, as far as global capacity creation is concerned, on phosphate side, global players are increasing capacity, a leading player in Morocco, as well as Saudi, they are expanding capacities and that to to extent can absorb a sharp decline in export from China. So India stands to gain on that. In terms of the urea capacity expansion. These are all fungible capacities and they can keep switching our products and there are adequate supplies which are there in the market, only the price keeps going up-and-down. India is also trying to be self-sufficient in urea. Many of the government-owned undertaking has been revealed, the volumes are fairly met and we do expect import of India need to come down in the coming days, but unfortunately, the consumption is going up.
So if that gets moderated, we should see a gradual reduction in imports. Coming to specifics and capacity creation in North-South, greenfield capacity creation is highly prohibitive in terms of cost and the return structure. And the first and foremost is the raw-material security. So unless we have a clear visibility in terms of securing the base raw materials, it may be difficult to set-up the facility and there too green field facilities will have huge investments and challenges in securing raw materials.
So at this point of time, the capacity creation can be through brownfield expansion or through inorganic, it can be a greenfield. It’s my understanding. But having said that, we need to see how the industry play-out. As you all know, P&K overall industry volume is close to 2024 million tons, 14 million is NPK and 10 million is DAP, and we are still net importer of DAP and NPK. So there is an opportunity exists in India to create capacity, but the policies need to be conducive, stable, providing reasonable returns and the company should be able to secure raw materials. So these challenges, it can be managed, then the capacity can come up.
Viraj Kacharia
And on the unique grade offtake in Q1, given where the pricing dynamics played out between DAP and NPG?
Sankarasubramanian S
EAP price is fixed at 1350, other MRPs on the higher side. We — actually the Q1 is the NCL sowing stage, unique grades don’t go in-state. It’s only urea, DAP, NP grades. Unique grades will go stop dosing after the time of flowering and the latter fruiting phase. So to that extent you can see the increased volume happening in Q2 and Q3. And our focus remains the same. We bring in differentiation, we add micron change with grades like SSP plus Boron plus zinc plus SSP plus urea, our share of volumes in the first-quarter has gone up significantly. So we are moving away from traditional SSP order to value-added run-rated products like this. So that way, we have been focusing on bringing the new products and the aim also will be to come up with release, controlled release, quoted. So these are all the areas we’ll be working on in the future.
Viraj Kacharia
Got it. Thank you very much and good luck.
Sankarasubramanian S
Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of S. Ramesh from Niral Mang Equities. Please go ahead.
S. Ramesh
Thank you very much and good evening. And congratulations on the results. Sir, if you can confirm the startup date for the plant because you mentioned, when exactly would you be completing the project?
Sankarasubramanian S
It is 26 27 4th-quarter or which means that calendar year 27 January that quarter we should commission the plant.
S. Ramesh
Okay. And secondly, in the results, you look at the segment numbers, are we seeing BNCC at EBITDA-positive in terms of the nutrient segment and when do you see that happen?
Sankarasubramanian S
It’s already EBITDA-positive in Q1.
S. Ramesh
Okay. And what — can you give us the volume growth for domestic formulations, exports and the biological pesticide?
Sankarasubramanian S
In respect of formulation business volume growth is 53%. Exports is close to 20%.
S. Ramesh
And in Bio?
Sankarasubramanian S
Both volume and value, Bio has doubled because of some yearly orders we secured from US and European markets. So it’s almost 100% I would say.
S. Ramesh
The exports user is 20% in value terms.
Sankarasubramanian S
Yes.
S. Ramesh
Okay. So where do we go from here in terms of the Crop protection business segment because there is a considerable improvement in the share of crop protection. So are you seeing this as a trend in the next two, three years and would that improve the overall blended EBIT and return for the company?
Sankarasubramanian S
Absolutely. We feel it’s going to be extremely good for crop protection. The major share of profits coming from crop protection and we keep increasing our capacity, we keep introducing new. We have systematically worked on bringing new products and all this will yield results in the coming years. The momentum what we are seeing this year will continue in the years to come.
S. Ramesh
So is it possible to give a timeline as to when you expect NACL to turn-around and become profitable?
Sankarasubramanian S
NACL is in window closer to comment at this point of time. Once they publish the results, you will see.
S. Ramesh
Okay. Thank you very much and wish you all the best.
Sankarasubramanian S
Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Himanshu Binani from Anand Rathi. Please go ahead.
Himanshu Binani
Sir, thank you for taking the question. So I’ll just question regarding NSA. So in the past, we have talked about getting into the crank side of the business in the Crop protection side. In NSEL, we do have some facilities related to that. So going forward, I hear in this segment.
Operator
So in NSEL or your voice is cracking.
Himanshu Binani
Hello, now?
Operator
Ssorry no, sir, the voice is still on cracking.
Himanshu Binani
Hello?
Operator
Yes, sir.
Himanshu Binani
So, sir, my question was largely on the NCL side basically. So in the past, you have talked about getting into the CRAM side of the business in the CPC segment. And in, what I understand is that we do have a facility out there. So are we going to use that or we would be like going or using our own thing or we would be like doing an organic thing in this?
Sankarasubramanian S
So we’ll be leveraging the capacities, whether it is here and they do have facilities and spar capacities. We’ll definitely be leveraging on this. They have the required expertise as well and their plans are designed to crimes. We will be definitely be waiting soon as objectives and synergy benefits we articulated at the time of acquisition as well.
Himanshu Binani
Got it, sir. Got it. And sir, by when can we expect the entire specification of to be done?
Operator
Sorry to interrupt, sir. So your voice again tracked.
Himanshu Binani
Hello?
Sankarasubramanian S
Yeah, can you please repeat can you hear you.
Himanshu Binani
Yeah. So by then we can expect the indictation to be like done in Coromandel.
Sankarasubramanian S
Right now, we are in the process of completing the open order after City approval and then we’ll make it as part of our subsidiary and it will run as separate entrating that is the strategy at this point of time. What is going to happen in future, we need to study. The main would be to ensure that whatever we are articulated at the time of acquisition, we deliver those numbers for anything.
Himanshu Binani
Got it, sir. Got it. Thank you, sir.
Sankarasubramanian S
Thank you very much.
Operator
Thank you. And ladies and gentlemen, this was the last question and I now hand the conference over to Mr Shankar Subramanian for the closing comments. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Sankarasubramanian S
Thank you. Thank you, everyone for participate in the call and insightful questions. And definitely some of the areas where you have identified will definitely work on and with your support and guidance, we’ll definitely come up with good performance in the coming quarters. Thank you, Manish, also for addressing this call.
Operator
Thank you. On behalf of Coromandel International Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us and you may now disconnect your lines.