Tata Chemicals Ltd (NSE: TATACHEM) Q3 2026 Earnings Call dated Feb. 02, 2026
Corporate Participants:
R. Mukundan — Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer
Analysts:
Unidentified Participant
Saurabh Jain — Analyst
Abhijit Takehela — Analyst
Vivek Rajamani — Analyst
Ankur Perival — Analyst
Sumant Kumar — Analyst
Nitesh Dhoot — Analyst
Presentation:
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Sa. Sa. Sa. Foreign. Ladies and gentlemen, you are connected to the Tata Chemicals Limited conference call. Please note this conference will begin by 7 5pm we thank you for your patience. Participants, you are connected to the Tata Chemicals Limited conference call. Please stay connected this this call is expected to begin by 7 5pm thank you. Sa. Foreign.
operator
Good evening ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the Q3 and 9 month FY26 earnings conference call of Tata Chemicals Limited. Please note that this conference is being recorded. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen only mode and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during this conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star and then zero on your touchtone phone. We have with us today Mr. R. Mukundan, Managing Director and CEO and Mr. Nandkumar Thirumale, Chief Financial Officer of Tata Chemicals Limited.
Before we begin, I would like to mention that some of the statements made in today’s discussion may be forward looking in nature and may involve risks and uncertainties. I now invite Mr. R. Mukundan to begin proceedings of the call.
R. Mukundan — Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you, thank you everyone and welcome to the quarter three nine month FY26 earnings call. I’ll start with a brief discussion of the industry situation and then get on to operational highlights across business and Geographies in terms of the demand scenario across geographies especially for soda ash, I think the demand growth is fairly tepid and flat in the near term constrained by weak macroeconomic in couple of geographies especially in Southeast Asia and and some parts of Asia which and this is mainly driven off certain elements related to the export restriction and export constraint those products are facing in one of the biggest markets they had in US So medium term soda ash.
While this is so in the short term, the medium term soda ash demand is expected to grow modestly supported by structural growth of solar glass and a stable consumption from other applications. However, it is very likely that the demand growth is unlikely to absorb the new global capacity additions in the near term which will result in continued pressure on pricing and margin in an import exposed domestic markets. India continues to exhibit relatively robust demand growth while China and US are witnessing marginal demand declines in some sectors and overall very very flat demand across other regions.
In Asia excluding Americas, excluding US Africa are seeing broadly resilient demand and there are pockets of this within this which are also having challenges. For example in Southeast Asia demand has been marginally impacted by tariff on photovoltaic glass imports into US affecting the regional glass trade flows Geopolitical risk and ongoing tariff uncertainties persist, continuing to cloud global demand visibility. The pace of economic recovery expected to remain fairly slow in the year ahead, limiting any sharp resurgence in industrial outcome over the medium and long term. The demand outlook remains positive driven by sustainability linked application including solar PV and EV growth, notwithstanding near term challenges in terms of supply, supply remains abundant across all major regions with elevated inventory levels continuing to exert pressure on pricing.
In India, prices have remained subdued due to sustained import from US and Turkey, limiting the scope for domestic price recovery. China inventories remain elevated but stable at 1.5 million ton and the sentiment softened slightly compared to previous quarter. Export prices have remained subdued through Q3 Beirun and Inner Mongolia have started testing additional expansion in December with full scale production sometime targeted during first quarter of the financial year next year. While Chinese producers initiated strong spring maintenance earlier than usual, this resulted in supply curtailment in the short term being rapidly offset by newly commissioned capacities. In terms of pricing, the soda ash prices remain challenged across most geographies with prices in certain markets approaching record low levels on persistent oversupply and muted demand.
In India, domestic list prices remained under pressure declined marginally in Q3 driven by continued import competition and weak pricing sentiment. In US Spot exports continued to soften, especially to the Southeast Asian markets. Export prices were particularly impacted by intense competition in the Southeast Asian market due to Chinese supplies. In the global market, Chinese soda ash prices have declined by approximately 54% between Q3FY23 and Q3FY26 primarily due to the low cost natural soda ash which has come on stream. Currently the domestic prices are about 1200 yuan in China. Overall pricing is expected to remain at the similar levels given the elevated inventories.
Now I’ll go on to the operational performance despite the market headwinds, the company standalone performance was actually supported by higher volumes prudent cost management resulting in stable operating performance. During the quarter. The reconfiguration of UK operations was completed with strategic focus on value added and not cyclical products to improve business stability. The revenue was about 1% down compared to previous year at 3,550 crore. Despite the fall in prices in the market supported by higher volumes, EBITDA at 345 crore compared to 434 mainly on account of subdued pricing across all geographies. But also this EBITDA fall has been sharp mainly in US which has led to the overall consolidated having sharp drop.
There’s an exceptional charge of 54 crores which is provided in the accounts for the new labor code and pad before exceptional item is negative 15 crore compared to 50 crore. Nearly 50 crore last quarter of FY25 net debt stands at 5,596 excluding a lease of 772 crore. In terms of stand alone, the revenue from operations stood at 1,204 crore up 3% compared to Q3.
operator
Ladies and gentlemen, please stay with us. The management line seems to have disconnected. Ladies and gentlemen, we thank you for your patience. We have now reconnected with the management. Over to you sir.
R. Mukundan — Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you. And I was highlighting the standalone highlights at this point of time. For Q3FY26, the revenue from operations stood at 1,204 crore up 3% from compared to Q3FY25 due to higher volume EBITDA at 228 crore. Standalone was 9% up from Q3FY25. Effect of also higher volume and lower fixed cost. An exceptional charge of 14 crore was provided in the account of the new labor code pad before exceptional item from continuing operation was 87 crore up 21% compared to Q3FY25. In terms of unit wise performance, India had performance higher than previous year mainly on higher volumes and operational efficiencies.
Quarterly sales volume of silica was up 15%. Quarterly sales volume of efforts was up by 9%. We also commissioned a new L55 line in Mambur 2 on October 25th. Pearl grade silica of 3000 metric tons per annum Kadalur was commissioned in December 2025. US both domestic and export volumes were higher. Prices were sharply lower in the exports which led to the sharp fall in revenues and the margins. UK salt production was Production was impacted due to unplanned stoppage which resumed thereafter. The bicarb is slowly recovering its market share with the feedstock coming in from TCNA Natural soda ash Kenya had higher revenue due to higher volume offset by lower realization.
The price did drop there and 50kt electric calciner. 50kt electric calciner soda ash plant in Kenya was off, operationalized and will be fully stabilized by March 2026. Rallis saw revenue growth of 19% driven by crop care and seed business. We also announced the acquisition of Nova bay Singapore on November 19 which we entered into share purchase agreement and this acquisition strengthens Tata Chemicals position in premium grade value added bicarb market by expanding the geographic footprint which now extends from UK which serves European market in India as well as now the Asian markets including ASEAN and Far East Capex.
The board also approved an investment of 515 crore for setting up a greenfield facility in this board meeting of 210 kiloton per annum capacity of iodized salt in Valinokam in Tamil Nadu. This facility is expected to be commissioned over next 36 months. Board in its meeting in 21 also approved as you know 50 kiloton per annum precipitated silica expansion at Kadalur at an investment of 775 crore and a 350 kiloton densage plant in Mitapur with an investment of 135 crore. So all the capexes are happening in India, a market which is steadily growing and also in bicarbonate in the Asian market to capture the premium bicarb market.
Overall our priorities remain firmly aligned in protecting margins, preserving cash flows, maintaining balance sheet strength. We continue to adopt a disciplined approach to capacity utilization, cost control and capital allocation ensuring resilience during current challenging phase of the soda ash cycle. With this I close my comment and head back to moderator for Q and A. Thank you.
Questions and Answers:
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Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press Star and one on their touchstone telephone. If you wish to withdraw yourself from the question queue you may press Star and two participants are requested to please use handsets while asking a question. Participants are also requested to limit their questions to two per participant and you can rejoin the queue in case of further questions. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Saurabh Jain from hsbc.
Please go ahead.
Saurabh Jain
Thank you for the opportunity. My first question is please can you remind us how the Kodash domestic redisitions in US are looking like for this year because the contracts would have been signed in January so any color on that?
R. Mukundan
Yeah. The US domestic prices which have been negotiated are at PAR are about 5 to $10 variation bulk of them overall I would say that there’s been about $5 drop in realization on the domestic market.
Saurabh Jain
$5 drop. That is useful. And can you please also make us understand how the cost would have changed the last five years because at a similar kind of realization we used to make very good margins pre Covid times. So now and then you know on a top level is how the cost structure has changed so that we are not making any profit anymore at these level issues that will be helpful.
R. Mukundan
Now in terms of on a fixed cost basis which is a dollar terms. I think there is broadly if you take if you spread it between two elements on Fixed cost there is about the increase in fixed cost over the last five years has been broadly about $15 million. Broadly on the variable cost. Certainly I think this would vary from the various pricing of coal and gas contracts. But I think a $5 movement has happened broadly per ton basis.
Saurabh Jain
But the gas and coal cost, would it be much different from what it was pre Covid times? I would have assumed it would have stabilized and maybe having some have seen some increase. But then it’s like a major increase in those costs versus how we used to procure say five years back.
R. Mukundan
Now the gas is broadly, you know, in terms of gas has settled at a much higher price from pre Covid and the coal has also increased because many of these coal companies have had to sort of sign a contract with annual escalation because many of them are actually running at the end of their cycle of the current siem and they’re finding it difficult to get financing for new siem. So they want to run the current siem, which effectively means they have to travel longer to get the coal out and hence they’ve had an increase in cost and it’s been annualized escalation.
I think if you take pre Covid over the last three to four years, I think probably is about $5 brought.
Saurabh Jain
In $5 in total.
R. Mukundan
Five dollar per ton of the finished product and $5 per ton of the cocoa coal cost, which is about 50. I think it’s about 55 now.
Saurabh Jain
That’s okay. That is very helpful. And if I may squeeze in one more question, US is currently, you know, has seen some winter storm. So any disruptions in your production or sales activities is. Have you noticed any such signs on that side?
R. Mukundan
No, this time there is no disruption. Disruption speak about. If you look at the operational challenge, this quarter has been mainly in Ukraine where I think we had an unplanned stoppage in our salt plant. But I think in quarter four with a much more stable operation, so should be reporting better numbers. In fact, we were hoping that this quarter we would break even in UK which has got pushed because of. Because UK had a very difficult storm which came on the way. But I think that did disturb the operation and there was an unplanned stoppage, but us there was none.
Saurabh Jain
So you guys on margins, how would you look at the coming quarters? Do you see any normalization towards the usual margins or would you expect it may continue to run at loss?
R. Mukundan
No, I think what we are going to do and I think this is really the operating team is managing it on a Case by case basis on shipment to shipment. While we continue to serve all markets which have held more or less pricing steady, especially in the Southeast Asian market, we are stopping to take orders which are below our expected number. So you would feel you would see in the coming quarter us not delivering the volume, sort of going down on the volume because it doesn’t make any sense to be selling in those markets at negative contribution.
Saurabh Jain
Okay. Does it mean a volume decline for the coming quarters in Europe?
R. Mukundan
Yeah, it’s a temporary pause, especially to the Southeast Asian market. Yeah.
Saurabh Jain
Okay, sure. I will join directly. Thank you so much.
R. Mukundan
Hello. Hello.
Saurabh Jain
I’m done with the questions. Moderator, can you take the other participant, please?
R. Mukundan
Thank you.
Saurabh Jain
Thanks.
R. Mukundan
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Unidentified Participant
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R. Mukundan
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Unidentified Participant
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operator
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R. Mukundan
Norwin, can we start now?
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R. Mukundan
Sure, Sam.
operator
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your patience. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience. As there was an issue at our end. We have now reconnected with the management.
R. Mukundan
Hello?
operator
Yes, sir, you are now connected into the conference call. We have our next participant, Abhijit Takehela from Kotak securities with the next question. May we go ahead with the question, sir? Yeah, please go ahead.
operator
Thank you, sir. Abhijit Sakela, your line has been unmuted. You may proceed with your question.
Abhijit Takehela
Thank you very much. So, first question from my side is regarding the capacity expansions. Could you please just give us some, guide us a little bit with regard to the expected EBITDA from these expansions for silica, soda ash and salt in India. Also, if I may squeeze in one alongside that with regard to Nova Bay as well, will that appear in the Europe business or somewhere else? And what sort of EBITDA number could we expect? And also, sorry, the Kenya capacity expansion of 50,000 tonnes. The electric calciner, is that a capacity addition or is that a change to a different fuel source?
R. Mukundan
Yeah, I think firstly on Kenya. Let me take that. I think Kenya, that 50k is additional capacity addition. It is over and above the current capacity. But also it is likely to be a more superior product because the purer ash, which also has low carbon footprint because of electricity calcination. So the EBITDA numbers will be higher than normal and it’s completely electric. The second piece is on the NOAA Bay acquisition actually in Singapore. It is for the Asian market, mainly for food and pharmaceutical application. And the unit numbers, everything we will sort of highlight once we consummate the operation acquisition.
But needless to say that it also gives us flexibility at a very low cost to double the capacity to 120,000 tonnes from the current 60,000 ton. So we will also highlight what will be the operational benefits of doing the same. The other thing which we are trying to do as far as Singapore is concerned, currently they are importing the synthetic soda ash all the way from Europe. We will be supplying that from some of our more known and more competitive sources. The third piece is on the capacity expansions in Salt. It would continue at about same margins as we have overall because whatever increase in cost is because of the new site that is more or less compensated very well with the logistic cost reduction.
So the margin should not change in the additional capacity coming in on the Valinokam. Also it’s coming at the right time because 24 to 36 months, our unit in Mitapur will be fully fully loaded by that time and we will not have any spare volume unless this goes on stream. Of course we could have expanded in Mitapur rather than here, but we chose to do it in south so that we have flexibility with two sources with respect to dense soda ash and Mitapur. We will come back to you with a specific number next quarter and precipitated silica.
We already highlighted the margin numbers in the past. A specific number. We will share it with you in terms of what it is likely to do. But all these projects have returns which are in excess of 16% and normally we try for returns closer to 18%.
Abhijit Takehela
Okay, so I believe the silica business currently is doing about some 60 odd crores of sales if I’m not mistaken, based on the 10,000 ton capacity. So should we assume a similar level of realization as well from the expansion?
R. Mukundan
Yeah, it would be similar but the overall issue would be that the way it would work is because we that 60 odd crore you’re able to distribute with only 10,000 and additional capacity which has come on stream that will be only seen in quarter four. You should not add that when you look at the average realization.
Abhijit Takehela
Fair enough. And just one last thing from my side was with regard to the bedroom capacity addition that you alluded to earlier on the call, what sort of phase one capacity is coming up over there? And yeah, I think that’s really the main thing.
R. Mukundan
Yeah, the overall increase in capacity is about 2.5 to 2.8 million ton. 2.5 you can take as a safe number in addition to what already exists there. And this in our view is in line with the target China has set of having 50% synthetic and 50% natural. But the way we see it is that while the new natural capacities have come, the synthetic capacities have to go. So overall there will be capacity rationalization which has to happen in China. With the current pricing, most synthetic plants are actually losing making money at all. They are losing, which is why they gone for a cyclical maintenance shutdown to sort of not produce below certain number.
Abhijit Takehela
Thank you so much. I’ll get back in the queue for any more.
R. Mukundan
Thank you.
operator
Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Vivek Rajamani from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Vivek Rajamani
Hi sir. Thank you so much for the opportunity. Just wanted to understand, I think on the US side you mentioned that you’re taking a conscious decision not to ship to Southeast Asia. While that could potentially improve the mix.
R. Mukundan
Yeah, I’ll just clarify. I said in Southeast Asia, if certain contracts are being offered at prices which are not acceptable, not that we are not shipping everything we are shipping, but it may lead to certain reduction in volume. We are going contract by contract as we speak.
Vivek Rajamani
Sure. So that’s very helpful. The question that I was asking was if we had to kind of think about the US business over the next few quarters, what would be a good level of EBITDA that we should assume? Or would it be fair to say that given the market conditions and given the time it will take for you to kind of rationalize your volumes, would this quarter be representative of what could be the case for the next couple of quarters? Or how should we think about that.
R. Mukundan
In terms of overall? I would say if you look at the shipments which we are doing, which are quantity commitments we had in the past, I think there was one shipment this quarter. There probably is going to be one shipment next quarter. Other than that, there are no shipments which, which we are taking below a number which we have for our fairer contribution. But if you look at us, the way to think about it is that in these swing markets where pricing has dropped below 160 or $155 broadly even a $20 movement of $15 movement is good enough to get everything back on track.
So I think it is just that it’s at the edge of where we think it is not acceptable. And 20, 15, $20 move in some of these contracts would make us move to start accepting those contracts.
Vivek Rajamani
Sure, sir, that’s, that’s very helpful. And just the Second question that I had on the capex front, given where we are in the markets currently and given that, you know, the closures that we were expecting, say out of Europe or even in China, it’s taking a bit longer. Just wanted to understand at what point in time would you consider pushing out the Capex or is there any thought process that at a certain price or at a certain level of where the industry is, you would think about either postponing the Capex or relooking at that altogether.
I do understand India is a growing market, but just wanted to understand how you would think of that given where the industry is today. Thank you.
R. Mukundan
In terms of Capex varun, I think fundamentally we are not adding any Capex in any market other than India. In fact we were the first ones to stop the expansion in the US way, way ahead of others because anticipating a market condition and if you really look at our approach, it has been that we serve markets which are fundamentally ahead of the, which are more robust, which are the regional market of north and South America. That’s what we are focusing our American unit as. And we have sufficient capacity to feed those markets and also to service our UK demand for our bicarbonate unit.
We also were ahead of the curve in terms of shutting down capacity in UK and had we not done it this year would have been far, far worse. In fact UK has shown about 100 crore swing from what it would have been to what it is now. And we do expect by next quarter they should be very close to breakeven and next year on start making profits. And the UK is going to focus fundamentally on bicarbonate and salt and that too have a very higher grade of food and feed and farmer. If you look at capacities in India also, most of them have happened while we have deep bottlenecked soda ash at a very low capex.
We have spent most of the most of the capital towards adding capacities in salt, bicarbonate, silica and fos. All pretty much not in the commoditized space. And even in the commoditized space if you look at the capex which are highlighted For Densash, for 350,000 ton of Densash spending 150 crore is a very, very competitive number. It is not an easy number anybody can get to. We have the flexibility to get there because of the resources we have access to. It’s also reconfiguration of one of the existing units within Mitapur which already exists. So we’re not putting fresh steel and cement on the Ground we are reconfiguring something there in Mittapur to get that additional outcome.
So clearly we are very conscious and even at this time we are going to be one of the key directions and we are being seeing for the last one year has been while the market is going through this challenging space we are extremely focused on making sure we serve the customers who make fair returns for us and serve them well at the same time. Continue to drive our fixed cost down while keeping the efficiencies up. Mothballing units and equipments which that don’t make competitive efficiency and rationalize capital in a way that it makes a positive cash flow for us.
So this year for example if you look at the cash flow for 3/4 it’s about 700 crore negative at the operating level of which 350 is on the forex movement. On the debt taken debt we already have. So the real number has been moved up. But 350 which is additional is fundamentally a sharp reduction and that has been achieved because of sharp reduction and capex pending from last year to this year. Going forward next year there are further going to be sharper reduction. While we announce these plans, these are going to be done very judiciously.
Vivek Rajamani
Sure sir, that’s very clear. And just one last clarification that I know one off sir. Uncommon posts in US correct. That’s all a normalized number. The ones that have reported. Correct. No one off cost or no one.
R. Mukundan
Off expenses to note there’s no one off call. As I mentioned there’s only one one off issue in the revenue line. Because of the quantity commitments we had with customer we had to ship them at a pricing which we would normally not have done. And there probably is going to be one more shipment which will go to Southeast Asia but other than that we’ve actually stopped taking orders at those numbers.
Vivek Rajamani
Sure sir, thank you so much and all the very best.
R. Mukundan
Thank you.
operator
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we request you to please restrict your questions to two per participant. You may rejoin the queue if you have follow up questions. Our next question comes from the line of Ankur Perival from Access Capital. Please go ahead.
Ankur Perival
Yeah, hi sir, thanks for the opportunity. Just on you know the U.S. part of our business. If you can help with what was the volume or revenue share from exports for the quarter or for the nine month period?
R. Mukundan
We’ll share that with you. This quarter had a higher volume of exports but we’ll share that with you.
Ankur Perival
Sure. Where I was coming from was, you know the subpar profitability that we are seeing in US is largely because of this export order which probably will not be there in the coming quarters or even the base profitability in US given the lower pricing contract is also slightly under pressure.
R. Mukundan
So I think what we will do we had. We will start sharing the export volumes with you. The subpar and export also is only in.
operator
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R. Mukundan
Sat Sam.
operator
Ladies and gentlemen, we thank you for your patience. We have reconnected with the management.
R. Mukundan
I was mentioning that we will start sharing the split. But in terms of exports I think there’s only one reason which is posing a challenge which is the exports to Asia, especially to Southeast Asia. Other regions are not not a challenge at this point of time and the prices have held up and while they’ve come down but they’ve not gone to a level where it is they’re holding at a very fairly good acceptable margins.
Ankur Perival
Sure sir, I was referring to the local sales in US Given the slightly lower pricing there will. Let’s say the EBITDA margin on a per kg basis will be similar versus last year or it will be slightly down. If I look at from CY27 I.
R. Mukundan
Said on an average you could take $5 down. It’s not too much. I mean in the sense that I given the market conditions. But our volumes in domestic have also increased. So I think to that extent it has more or less compensated for whatever we would have lost in terms of pricing.
Ankur Perival
Sure. Second question on the margins both in India and Kenya. Kenya we have seen pretty healthy uptake there and same in terms of volume growth in India but somehow Indian margin is slightly lower. Any specific reason? And the same question on Kenya margins what should be the steady state number there?
R. Mukundan
I think Kenya would remain where it is. I think Kenya we are not seeing any major changes in their numbers this quarter to next quarter. It’s all going to be volume dependent. They sold more so they had better numbers this quarter. Hopefully once the 50,000 tonnes comes on stream that will be at a slightly higher pricing and probably would give them even higher margin. As far as India is concerned. I think broadly we expect the current numbers to run through the margin numbers in India have broadly been more or less steady except for some pockets where prices have sort of gone down by about 500 or 600 rupees a ton in soda ash.
But otherwise other products have held more or less up. But India also has had a one off impact of certain costs which they had to incur this quarter to get ready for the next year.
Ankur Perival
Okay, okay, that’s it from my side. Thank you. And all the best.
operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Sumant Kumar from Motilal Oswal. Please go ahead.
Sumant Kumar
Yeah, hi, my question is for the solar. Solar was driving overall soda as demand earlier. So how is the scenario globally, say for China and other developed countries?
R. Mukundan
Yeah, so solar still is driving the demand. Clearly. I think it can turn on a time. If you look at even lithium, which was a big driver, suddenly lithium prices have rebounded. So clearly it’s a long term direction. What really has impacted the solar in Southeast Asia, the demand in Southeast Asia and why so much material is oversupplied there is because many of the our customers have had a challenge because of the high duty put by us on exports from there. As that is getting rationalized. Because as that is getting rationalized, I think over a period of time, I think it will settle down.
So I think this is very much an impact of what US has done. US was a large market. Many of these capacities were set up by Chinese companies to continue to export to us. So clearly I think that has unwound itself and hopefully with the deals being signed and contracting restarting, this should settle.
R. Mukundan
Overall we have seen in the past also export has a lower margin business and now because of tariff issue, our margin is lower and domestic demand in US is lower.
Sumant Kumar
So do you think next couple you. Are restricting your sales to domestic US market and not exporting, minimizing the export. So do you think the margin overall profitability of the US business is going to normalize in the next couple of quarters?
R. Mukundan
Yeah, I think in terms of what we are saying is that the prices will have to rebound at some point because many, many companies will be taking decisions what we are taking. So I think it is not going to be one company decisions will drive overall behavior. But in terms of the way we approach is that we really look at the market and do our plans. I completely agree with you. Domestic market for all our businesses is where we get the highest realization and nearby markets are where we get the next highest realization. So for us, the nearby markets tend to be Southern American markets and parts of Far east and they would focus in those markets rather than extend themselves beyond that and do as much of a volume in those markets as possible.
At the same time, I think the UK has completely withdrawn. So part of the UK demand for internal consumption of soda ash is being met by our US operation. And in India I think we are able to sort of continue to sell because India is a net importer. We still need more capacity to come on India, come in India. But I think with the current pricing the new capacities may not make sense. It is only going to be debottlenecking capacities.
Sumant Kumar
Okay, thank you.
operator
Thank you ladies and gentlemen. We will now take our last question from the line of Nitesh Dhoot from Anand Ratty Institutional Equities. Please go ahead.
Nitesh Dhoot
Yeah, thank you for the opportunity. I had missed the initial part of the discussion, so sorry if I’m repeating that. You know, while we do understand that the pricing pressures, you know, is there on other markets but in UK after the discontinuation of soda ash, we had been guiding around 250 crores of EBITDA for FY26, you know, from the fixed cost savings etc. And a positive quad by Q3. So our nine month EBITDA is about 110 crores. Q3 as I understand seems to have a one time impact. But by when can we get to the guided EBITDA of 250 crores or about 60, 65 crores quarterly EBITDA run rate and a positive pattern.
R. Mukundan
Yeah, I think as I mentioned this quarter while we were aiming to get pretty close to that number, we were impacted by one off event which led to certain production issues because of the snowstorm they had which really was not an insurable event in. So I think we have had an issue with that piece but clearly I think we are making progress and the fixed cost savings have come through and part of that journey will be completed in Q4 and certainly during next year we will be fully on board with the statement we made. Also the pharmaceutical salt unit is now pretty much on track to sort of increase its capacity utilization.
As that utilization increases that would also contribute to the overall number in uk. So I must say that we are behind by almost six months in UK in terms of turnaround but not in terms of fixed cost reduction but overall in terms of getting the margin high margin revenue up in that market.
Nitesh Dhoot
All right, so that’s helpful. Thank you so much.
operator
Thank you. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. R. Mukundan for closing comments. Over to you sir.
R. Mukundan
Thank you and thank you to all the participants. This has been a short call mainly because of the, because of the sum of inordinate failing which happened at the bridge at the chorus. So hopefully we want to. We will have smoother calls going forward. Thank you for your patience. Thank you for the call today. So As I mentioned during Q3FY26 the soda ash market continued to remain oversupplied especially for us. The pricing in the export market in particular. One reason had impacted them and that has had an adverse impact on the overall number operating environment While remaining challenging.
We do believe that the actions we are taking on the ground in terms of cost discipline and portfolio resilience would hold us in good stead. The other actions we’ve taken in terms of operational efficiency, tighter cost control and proactive market management would position us albeit the switch over from growing to making this cost management as one of the key has been something which we have done in the last two quarters very sharply so. While the near term does call for caution which we are advocating, we remain confident of companies strategic direction which essentially means to put capacities which are non cyclical also put only very low CAPEX capacities which yield higher return and be very cash focused in our operations.
We also believe the balance sheet strength and the capability of our team will ensure that we navigate this well. So we will continue to act with discipline to ensure we are well positioned as we come out of this challenging time to capture opportunities as market conditions improve. Thank you all and see you for Q4FY26.
operator
Thank you on behalf of Tata Chemicals Limited that concludes this conference. Thank you all for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines.