Tata Chemicals Ltd (NSE: TATACHEM) Q4 2025 Earnings Call dated May. 07, 2025
Corporate Participants:
Unidentified Speaker
R Mukundan — Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer
John Mulhall — Chief Financial Officer
Analysts:
Unidentified Participant
Saurabh Jain — Analyst
Ankur Periwal — Analyst
Rohit Nagraj — Analyst
Vivek Rajamani — Analyst
Arjun Khann — Analyst
Presentation:
operator
Good evening ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the Q4FY25 and FY 2025 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 0 on your touchtone phone. We have with us today Mr. R. Mukundan, Managing Director and CEO and Mr. Nandakumar Thirumalai, Chief Financial Officer of Tata Chemicals Ltd. 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.
With this I now invite Mr. R. Mukundan to begin the proceedings of the call. Thank you and over to you sir.
R Mukundan — Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer
Thanks Nirav. Good evening and welcome to everyone for this Q4FY25 earnings call and I’ll start the discussion with a brief industry overview then move on to our highlights across business and geographies starting with the demand scenario. Across geographies the demand worldwide there was a surge, there was a growth mainly led by China by 18% and India by 4.5% the market conditions while the rest of the world saw a very muted growth or decrease in demand up about 2.3%. The market conditions remain challenging even as India continues to grow while China, US and Western Europe are either seeing flattish or slight decline due to reduced demand mainly in the flat and container glass in all these markets.
So going forward we do anticipate that pockets other than China, US and Western Europe to show momentum and growth and India will continue to grow though demand, supply, balance, softness, tariff uncertainties will also weigh in on the market. But however I would say looking beyond this medium and long term remains positive driven largely by sustainability trends where soda is one of the key ingredients for the sustainability transition of the world in terms of supply side so soda ash remains well supplied and mainly the supply position will continue to remain strong especially because supply has risen.
In China more recently soda ash capacity increased by 8.9% and this was the main reason for decline in prices by over 25% from previous year. The tariff uncertainty could lead to shifts in production center of soda ash application industry and this could lead to change in demand centers. However, some of the demand centers will continue to move forward with positive momentum. In terms of the TCL performance the company reported for Q4 a consolidated basis of revenue of 3509 EBITDA of 327 and a PAT before exceptional item of negative 12 crores. For Q4 financial year on a standalone basis on a revenue of 12.
19 crore there was an EBITDA of 230 crore and a PAT from continuing operation 97 crore. For the full year the consolidated revenue was 14,887 crores, an EBITDA of 1953 crore and a PAT before exceptional item of 479 crore. Similarly for FY25 the standalone revenue was 4441 crore EBITDA of 818 crore and PAT from continuing operation of Rs. 524 crore India. The performance is higher compared to previous year mainly driven by higher volume partly offset by lower realization of soda ash and picarb. The quarterly sales volume of FO is increased significantly to 817 metric ton compared to Q4 of FY20.
During the year FY25 company commissioned 230 kilotons of soda ash which is fully on stream now and 140,000 kilotons of bicarb capacity in Matapur which is also fully on stream US overall both the volumes and prices were lower than Q4 of 24 into FY25. UK had lower volume mainly because of the key reason of decommissioning of the seizing of the soda ash operations in Losto and there’s been an exceptional charge additional exceptional charge of 55 crore which has been taken to comply with certain regulatory and contractual obligations in UK and our focus in UK will be to move fully to high grade value added products and in this regard we have commissioned a 70,000 kilotons of pharma SOL capacity in Middlewich UK.
Kenya saw higher sales volume and higher realization mainly because they continue to focus on the domestic African market which give them better yield in terms of price contribution margin. Rallis results were lower amid continued weakness in export market and this also is a weak quarter for Alice and they were in line with our internal understanding. In conclusion going forward I think our focus will continue to be focused on safety focus on sustainability while focusing on these two. We will continue to focus on maximizing volumes across products, focus on cost and working capital efficiency and we will also calibrate capex the market conditions.
We remain positive in terms of the medium term outlook and we also remain very very focused on our outcomes in the immediate term to ensure that our free cash flow and operational efficiencies continue to be of the highest order. With this I close my comments and hand over Back to the moderator to open for Q and A. Thank you.
Questions and Answers:
operator
Shall we open the floor for questions? Thank you very much. We’ll now begin with the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question, may you press star in one on the attached tone 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. Participants are requested to limit the questions to two per participants and can rejoin the queue in case of further questions. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. First question is from the line of Saurabh Jain from hsbc.
Please go ahead.
Saurabh Jain
Yeah, thank you so much for the opportunity. My first question is on the Indian business. We have seen improvement in the volumes and also on the margin side on a Q and Q basis. I wanted to know your views. Whether the government imposed minimum import price, does it play a role in this kind of improved performance for us during the quarter?
R Mukundan
No, I think this would have been done even without any support. And I think that MIP was in fact not a factor at all.
Saurabh Jain
Okay, so it’s going to expire in June. And how would you, you know, imagine the situation in India post this MIP expiry? You said you don’t are not impacted. Right. But what about the industry? Are you seeing any impact for this expiry of MIP next month?
R Mukundan
I doubt it benefited industry. I doubt it’s going to sort of impact the industry.
Saurabh Jain
Okay, thanks. Secondly, on the US business and if you can also comment on the margins for the other businesses as well, the U.S. business, we have seen the margin, you know, kind of seeing consistent compression. Right. While if I look at the realizations, it’s still holding up at about 259 to $60. And we used to make good margins at these realizations about 2 to 3/4 back. Can you please explain what kind of led to such kind of difficulties in getting the profitability in the US business fees?
R Mukundan
I think the big issue in US is not the. Mainly the domestic piece of the US business is doing fine in terms of the both revenue and margin profile. It is mainly in the exports where there’s been a margin compression. And I think fundamentally one needs to watch out for the export pricing in the Southeast Asian markets and in the Latin American market. Latin American market, not such a big issue. It’s been the Southeast Asian market where the prices are hovering somewhere close to, I would say $200 per ton. And they are not, while they’re positive contribution margins but they are not full cost recovery.
Saurabh Jain
So what you’re relating to the fact is that the demand situation is much better in the latam, in the South Asian markets, but the pricing challenges remain.
R Mukundan
And the margins are not as good. I don’t think there’s a demand issue in the markets we operate. I think we are fully sold out and we’ll continue to be fully sold out in all our products. I think as far as, and I think the way we do see the next year going forward, we do see India, Kenya and UK continue to move in the positive direction. UK mainly because they’ve restructured their operation and I think the cost structures and everything will be reflected by first quarter and you would start seeing the difference and by second quarter it would have fully settled down.
So I think that’s the profile, I would say of UK because whatever residual issues would be there, they would all be out of the way during I think early part of this month itself more or less it was out of the way. So I think we are not going to see any further cost impact. And UK would continue to go towards a value added cost profile, which is what India would continue to move in the same direction and Kenya would be and US domestic also should be positive. I think the main point being the US exports which we remain totally focused on how to improve the volume and the market mix and that effort the team is going to work on, it is not that we can’t place the volume, but it is about where can we place the volume with opportunities to improve the margin profile.
Saurabh Jain
So what could be a fair assumption to kind of build out the margins for the US business? You know, $40 per ton of margin. When can we reach that back?
John Mulhall
What are the questions with that?
Saurabh Jain
What I’m saying is what kind of improvement do you expect in the US margins in the next few quarters? How much of that can improve?
John Mulhall
See, look at next few quarters. The pricing is still subdued in the market here, so I think we have to look. And since US exports about 60% and keeps and 40s domestic sales on the export part, the pressure still remains. So we don’t expect any major improvement in the margins the next few quarters in us.
operator
Thank you. Sorry to interrupt. You are requested to come back for a follow up question.
Saurabh Jain
Sure, thanks.
operator
I request to all the participants, kindly restrict to two questions per participant and join the queue again for a follow up question. Next question is from the line of Ankur Perival from Access Capital, please.
Ankur Periwal
Yeah, hi. Thanks for the opportunity. I hope I’m audible.
operator
Yes, you’re yeah, great.
Ankur Periwal
Thank you. So first question on, on the the UK part of the business. You did mention you know one cost or you know expenses of around 55 odd crores for the quarter. But even if I adjust for that, you know the profitability on, on the business given the shutdown of you know a lost stock there looks slightly on the lower end. So your thoughts on how you are looking at FY26 given that you know pharma salt also comes into picture in terms of ramp up and the loss making operations are also taken care of.
R Mukundan
Yeah, I think as I said by quarter two you would start getting the complete stable profile and our anticipation is in terms of its overall it should move towards the way Magadi transformed itself. So I think UK is on a transformation path. We are pretty much hopeful that that will be the direction it would take.
Ankur Periwal
Sure. And Nandu sir, just as a follow up show, any numbers or thoughts we can peg ourselves maybe an FY21 22 profitability sort of a number that we can look at on a steady state basis.
John Mulhall
If you look at the British sold numbers have improved in the last three, four years time and therefore when you get the annual report, let’s see by the end of May you’ll get all the numbers for company wise performance and then you can look at those and work out. So bitter salt is an upside and EBITDA has in the last four years doubled that would remain as a time we also get the incremental volume from the pharma grade salt and salt and biker. The ATKT plant remains in UK which is going to deliver profits. Lost stock is shut down.
So lost stock losses will not be coming going forward. So broadly we’re looking at a kind of UK getting, you know, getting into much better financial position going forward. The issue remains debt in UK which has to get serviced over a point in time. So I think broadly it’s a bitter Salt and the 80kt by Curve which will do well.
Ankur Periwal
Okay, great, that’s helpful. Second on the Kenya side of operations we have seen a recovery in profitability there volumes also have seen a Q1Q improvement as well as you know on a Y and Y front. Will this be a fair run rate, you know, expected to continue or there are more benefits that that can flow through there?
R Mukundan
Yeah, in Kenya I think this would continue. I think there is headroom to improve volume even further. That will be our attempt but I think the current run rate is fairly conservative estimate you can make. In addition to that they’ve got a They’ve got an approval to expand their capacity from the government. The NEMA approval has come this quarter and they are pressing ahead with the expansion initially for another 50,000 tonnes. But this 50,000 tonne will be a pure ash product which means it can go into float glass and we expect to bring it on stream sometime during the towards the end of the year.
That will be another added benefit as we move forward in Kenya. And the pure ash product at least the construct we have is it will come in streams of 50,000 ton because it is a very modular plant which uses green power and solar power. Thank you.
Ankur Periwal
Okay, great sir, that’s helpful. Thank you and all the best.
operator
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Rohit Nagraj from BNK Securities. Please go ahead.
Rohit Nagraj
Yeah, thanks for the opportunity. So first question is in terms of the Chinese demand. So we have seen that last year also it went up by double digits for three months. Also in the coming to you said almost 18%. So any understanding as to which segments are driving this demand and probably at certain point in time there could be a backlash in terms of the user segment. There would be higher inventories and subsequently demand slowdown for soda. As just your comments on that. Thank you.
R Mukundan
As I mentioned last year was a year of very strong growth in China. We don’t expect similar growth to continue this year last year was about 18% surged by mainly solar and lithium carbonate markets. We don’t expect because usually we expect about 6% growth. So we are actually factoring in that China will probably remain stable or maybe have a negative of 1% or so. So it’s going to be somewhere stable in my view. So that’s what we are projecting into our plan.
Rohit Nagraj
Sure. Thank you. Second question, in terms of the India domestic market, how are we foreseeing both the availability of sodas in the domestic market and the exports and concurrent demand side which and all segments are actually showing the good traction. Thank you.
R Mukundan
India will continue to grow and we are seeing very good traction of growth in both Glass and all other segments in India. And we are at least Factoring anywhere between 5 to 6% growth in India even in the coming year. And Indian economy and Indian demand is one of the steadiest we will see for the next couple of years.
Rohit Nagraj
Thanks and all the best, sir.
operator
Thank you. Next question is from the line of S. Ramesh from Nirmal Bank. Please go ahead.
Unidentified Participant
Thank you and good evening. So if you were to look at the UK business in perspective you had to knock out this order revenues and Work on the margins, 20s kind of margin possible. Once everything is stabilized, maybe second half. What is your thought on that?
R Mukundan
I think my suggestion is once we stabilize, I said second quarter is what you should take for first quarter. I think will be the continued process stabilization. The reason I say that is we will be finishing the reconfiguration of our power plant and other plants. Because these power plants are sized for, for a very large capacity of solar, they’re being reworked and reconfigured. That work should sort of stabilize around second quarter. So just I would say I don’t want to make any forward looking statement. I think you need to wait for the second quarter numbers to come through.
Part of the result you will see in this first quarter itself, by the time second quarter comes, it should stabilize more.
Unidentified Participant
Okay, so in terms of the U.S. business and the overall interest expense outlook in terms of the cash flows, when do you see the cash flows improving to levels where you can reduce the debt and bring down interest expense? And obviously you need to see some traction in terms of the pricing. But at these prices, would you expect the current run rate in the US profitability to continue or do you have any other levers where you can at least marginally improve the performance?
R Mukundan
In terms of US our focus is going to be to generate enough EBITDA margin and cash flows to at least start bringing down the debt marginally. So we are extremely focused and we have actually tightened our belts. In terms of. When I said recalibrate the CAPEX plan, I think the bulk of the recalibration in CAPEX is happening in US as we speak and we’ll be able to grow the momentum in US as soon as we see that it has reached reasonable levels of free cash flows which then can allow us to invest. So we are putting capital where the cash flows are good and where the cash flows need to improve, we will work on improving them.
One of the big levers we have is to become even more cost efficient and cost competitive. And that effort is underway during the year. So you will start seeing some of the results on that. Even while the market remains challenging for the US exports, you will start seeing the results during the course of the year.
Unidentified Participant
So just one last thought. If you look at the excess capacity plaguing the market, what is the kind of capacity that needs to be taken out for you to get back to normalized margins?
R Mukundan
See the excess capacity, I would say not excess capacity, excess uncompetitive capacity, I think, which needs to go off for the balance to happen, I think if you look at the world prices, the highest world prices in Western Europe, I think the capacity there are being serviced at unsustainable levels and ideally they would be the ones also in these sort of markets we expect the new CapEx for synthetic to sort of slow down and that would also make sure that as growth comes in, demand growth continues, we have a reasonable balance coming through. So broadly, I would say that in the markets we operate now, we are not an operator in the European market.
For us, we work with a pretty stable outlook towards capacity and continued growth of the market. The balancing in Europe will only take out some of the material which needs to, which flows out from Turkey into Europe. That will continue to increase. That’s how we.
Unidentified Participant
Okay, thank you very much and I’ll join the queue.
operator
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Vivek Rajmani, Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Vivek Rajamani
Hi sir, am I audible?
R Mukundan
Yep.
Vivek Rajamani
Yeah. Thank you so much for the presentation. Sir, just a couple of clarifications on the U.S. i know you mentioned that the export realizations in some markets were the main reason for the decline in ebitda, but just wanted to check if the surge in gas cost that we saw this quarter, did that also play a role in the margin compression? And the second clarification I had was, if I remember correctly, in the last quarter you mentioned that two shipments got pushed out to this quarter. So just wanted to check if it wasn’t for those shipments with the US volume numbers would have been lower this quarter.
Thank you.
R Mukundan
Yeah, I think the US volume numbers are lower this quarter mainly because I think we had congestion at the Port of Portland because of weather condition and they did get pushed out. So they will come into the books in the first quarter of the current financial year. And in terms of your question about. Sorry, can you repeat the first question? What did you ask before that?
Vivek Rajamani
Yeah, just wanted to check if the increase in gas cost, did that also play a bit of a role in the margin compression.
R Mukundan
Gas is fully hedged. I think our big issue more than the cost side in most of the units, variable cost side, it has more been the market pricing and also fixed cost where there are opportunities. So I think we are focused on those two elements. US in fact, our gas consumption is only 25% of our energy portfolio there 75% of our energy portfolio still is coal. And while we will convert to gas fully by 2030, as we speak, 70% is coal. Coal which is more or less stable. There is no movement in the cost at all.
So for us, the Impact is not high and that has not made any difference. Our biggest difference is the. As Nandu highlighted, we need to maximize volume. Maximizing volume does bring down variable cost because the utilization rates aid efficiencies of operation. And the second piece is about making sure our fixed cost is fit for fitness. There are opportunities there and also markets we serve. Can we get to slightly better servicing of markets where the profile market mix is better?
Vivek Rajamani
Sure, sir. So just as an extension to that because you mentioned the logistical problem then would a 600 kilotons sort of a quarterly run rate be a realistic number to assume going forward you don’t have any other constraints?
R Mukundan
For us, yeah, it should be very much possible. I think we are also in the process of adding warehouse capacity so that the production rates and evacuation rates don’t get affected. So we will be doing that to aid the aid of steady production. But 600 on an average, be very comfortable.
Vivek Rajamani
Sure sir. And if I could just squeeze in one last clarification, I think in your opening remarks did you mention that there was supply growth in China once again, did I hear that correctly?
R Mukundan
Yes, in China there’s been a supply growth. I think that is where the capacities have come in last year and basically the Inner Mongolia capacity was not running at full rate, full capacity due to maintenance outage. But now it is fully back on stream. So the maintenance apart from the Inner.
Vivek Rajamani
Mongolia capacity, sir, there is nothing incrementally new. Right. It’s just a ramp up of that capacity, is that correct?
R Mukundan
Yeah. Basically they’re out of the. Out of the maintenance outages which is why I think the exports to China stopped.
Vivek Rajamani
Just wanted to clarify that. Thank you so much and all the very best.
operator
Thank you. A request to all the participants. Kindly restrict two questions and join the queue for a follow up. Next question is from the line of Arjun Khanna from Kodak Mahindra, please go ahead.
Arjun Khann
Thank you for taking my question. Sir, when I look at our net debt, it’s up roughly 1100 crores. And in the presentation we talk about net debt being higher due to higher working capital debt in India, US and uk. But when I look at our balance sheet I do see inventories up only 30 crores, trade receivables being flat at 1900 crores and trade payables actually in our favour of around 120 crores. So what am I missing here, Arjun?
John Mulhall
I think it’s more in terms of the. We also had a CAPEX incurred during the quarter so I think temporary funding for the year for Capex and This year we had I think peak capex in India and all over the place. So that is a temporary working capital loan taken to fund the capex. But over a point in time that would be repaid from our equity coming in in terms of the profits being made. So otherwise inventory is more or less intact. It’s more like the. I would say UK had also certain expenses the variable cost being more.
Otherwise it’s more in terms of funding the overall cash needs of the company which came in the year which EBITDA was there but it was offset hugely by the Capex incurred and at the last stage because this Capex was mainly incurred for the last stage of Mitapur which had the capitalization happening for soda ash bicarbon salt. So it’s a matter of temporary funding.
Arjun Khann
Taken through working capital growth in terms of Capex. So we spent roughly 2000 odd crores in FY25. What is the outlook for FY26 and beyond? If we have any number for 27.
John Mulhall
It will be lower because this year was a peak assumed as we spoke about the UK pharma grid. Salt was capitalized the current year the salt and bicarb came. So this is a peak. We’ll go back to the historical trends going forward that is for next year.
Arjun Khann
So our plan would be about 1000 crores for FY26.
R Mukundan
See our sustenance capex should be clocking anywhere between 550 or so. 500 to 600 or so and beyond that I think our biggest Capex is increasing capacity in silica plant. Sorry our FOS prebiotics plants at the cost of about 18 crores. And there are no other major Capexes being planned during the year. We’ll come back to Kenya sir.
Arjun Khann
Kenya 50,000.
R Mukundan
Yeah. That is at a very minor capex. We’ll give you the figure in the next meet when we do it is it is about. Kenya is about next year is about.
Arjun Khann
60 odd crores for 50,000 tonnes.
R Mukundan
50,000 and other capital expenditures.
Arjun Khann
Sure. And my final question, second question on freight costs. So if I see freight and forwarding costs year on year while we have increased volumes by roughly 1 odd percent we see 11% increase in freight and forwarding charges. Is there any impact on this or is there anything you’d like to call out on this number? So exchange etc the way we do business. Yeah yeah.
John Mulhall
One is increased volume we had in the current year Arjun and secondly we look at the increase also this year we are getting out of ansac. The last year of ANSAC and which means that now we have to directly get the C and F price and pay the freight for it. Till last year we had ANSEC a much higher share. We were derivative at their port in US and they were incurring the freight. So the model has changed in US and this is third year and the last year of ANSAC coming out next year would be entirely exports without any ANSAC play.
So that’s a change in model which means now we get a higher revenue but we also incur higher freight.
Arjun Khann
Sure, but net net would it have a positive impact on margins?
John Mulhall
See that we can’t say between ANSAC and export both would be more or less similar. But in the non ANSAC is we know who the customers are. At this point in time I think premature to comment on whether I’ll get better margins by doing non ANSAC sales. But broadly it should help us in the long term. Now we know exactly who the customers are and we can service them better.
Arjun Khann
Sure. Thank you very much for this and wishing you all the best.
John Mulhall
Thank you Arjun.
operator
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Abhijit Akela from Kodak Securities. Please go ahead.
Unidentified Participant
Yeah. Good evening gentlemen. Thank you so much for taking my questions. Sir, in your opening remarks I believe I heard a number of 8.9% increase in capacity for soda ash for the full year last year at the global level. Just wanted to confirm that number and then if you could please also just help us with a demand growth number if you would happen to have that for the. For last calendar year as well.
R Mukundan
So last calendar year I think both were about similar. I think 8.3 and 8.9. So I think the demand grew by 8.3 and the supply which came on stream was 8.9.
Unidentified Participant
Understood. And with regard to the outlook for capacities in the global market, would it be possible to share your perspective on how you’re seeing things? You know there is a large capacity expansion by Shisha Jam I believe it’s called in the US five million tonnes odd. And then some other, you know, smaller expansion in various parts of the world. So any sense of how much you know, new capacity could be expected over the next two or three years.
R Mukundan
How view is that expansion in US for export market is unviable at this prices. Yeah, that’s I’m saying that at the current export price realization and margins the expansion of capacity is not viable. And you know the point is that at the end of the day you have to finance these. It won’t be Numbers don’t add up.
Unidentified Participant
Understood, sir. But as per your market intelligence, are the suppliers in the market behaving rationally according to this or are the expansion still going on as per their plans?
R Mukundan
I cannot comment on that. I can only comment on what we do. I think if you look at the market picture, it has become even more slightly hazy with all the tariff issues. And on top of that interest rates are not coming down with the rate at which they need to come down. And I think if it is going to be debottlenecking where you are adding capacity for very marginal cost, I think it is one scenario. But if it is a scenario of a fresh new capacity, I think it is. It is challenging.
Unidentified Participant
Thank you so much and all the best.
operator
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Dikshan Gupta from Financial. Please go ahead.
Unidentified Participant
Good evening, sir. So my first question would be what exactly would you attribute the lower profitability to? Is it because of drop in realizations or increases in expenses or issues in the uk? What exactly would be the reason?
R Mukundan
So clearly I think pricing has a role. And secondly, I think this quarter some of the units could not perform too in terms of volume, especially us. And thirdly, I think the issue is also due to certain one off expenses which have been booked in this quarter.
Unidentified Participant
Okay. And my another question would be like the. Even the sales volume growth has not been very promising. So how will you maintain the sales volume growth in the future to offset the lower realizations or the volatility in the realization in the future?
R Mukundan
I think we will continue to maximize throughput. I think in terms of sales volume, if you look at it, I think the volume loss which we will have in UK in soda ash more or less will try to compensate with growth in India and Kenya. And India and Kenya will continue to offer opportunities for expansion.
Unidentified Participant
And will you be able to give me a number like how much sales volume growth would we expect year on year on a sustained basis?
John Mulhall
See, the capacity has gone up in the current year as the numbers have been given to you, that will come for the next year, full year. This is only part year it came. So you can expect that for the full year next year both India soda ash, India bicarb and UK pharma grade salt, that will be the incremental volume next year.
Unidentified Participant
And that capacity increase would be according to you, it is met by the demand. Like the demand growth also would be expected as much, right?
R Mukundan
Yes. Yes, yes, yes.
Unidentified Participant
Okay.
R Mukundan
Okay.
Unidentified Participant
Thank you. Thank you so much.
John Mulhall
Thank you.
operator
Thank you. Participants kindly restrict to two questions. Per participant. Next question is from line of Saket Kapoor from Kapoor and company. Please go ahead.
Unidentified Participant
Yeah, Namaskar sir. And thank you for this opportunity sir. Firstly can you provide us with the import number in tonnage for the quarter and for the year as a whole. As you mentioned that MIP did not play any role supports the imposition of mip. How have things been? And also an update on AD D.
R Mukundan
Sir, there has been reduction but you know my views of that and I’m giving my company view that MIP number is not impacting. It’s about a million ton of material came into India But I think ADD I think the investigation is on. So it is on. I would not like to comment on a matter which is in a quasi judicial process. Okay.
Unidentified Participant
And then for the utilization levels what are the current utilization levels and what are the capacity addition for both soda ash, bicarb and salt. So if you could just give some some color for. For the next financial year how are the capacities likely to be?
John Mulhall
See our numbers we have with you in terms of Tata Chemicals that is there and beyond that capacity expansion is almost very unviable. We don’t look at much expansion coming on board Accepting China which is already at the Inner Mongolia is fully operational. Otherwise we don’t expect at the current prices that companies can put up capacities which will be viable.
Unidentified Participant
That’s correct. But I think the 2000 crore capex which we have spoken for this financial year.
R Mukundan
I know you’re asking about our capacity. Our capacity as Nandu has already mentioned 230,000 ton of soda ash and 140,000 ton of bicarb that’s fully come on stream the full what you saw in quarter four we will be now seen in through the full year. That is the upside.
Unidentified Participant
Okay sir. Right sir. I’ll join the queue. Thank you sir. Thank you.
operator
Thank you. Next question is from line of S. Ramesh from Nirmal Monk. Please go ahead.
Unidentified Participant
Thanks for the follow up. So if you were to achieve the full utilization of your expansion in Metapur soda ash and bicarbonate in terms of the depreciation run rate would it be similar to what we saw in the fourth quarter for the full year about 72 crores or should we pencil in some increase there and on this sort of utilization after the depreciation would be able to achieve the normal EBIT margin and ROC of around 20%. Is that possible?
John Mulhall
Ramesh? We capitalize sometime in October so this Q4 would be the right number to track for the full year going forward.
Unidentified Participant
Quarter wise so that entire 230,000 we can expect to be done in.
R Mukundan
Yes.
John Mulhall
And 145 KT by car.
Unidentified Participant
Okay, so just some thoughts on the UK tariff rebates for Indian exports under the FTA. Any impact for soda ash, bicarbonate or any other business.
R Mukundan
From uk? We bring in very high quality pharmaceutical grade products into India. Our exports to UK are not there. But I think certainly we are examining opportunities. Opportunities to export high grade pharmaceutical products once we start making in India to them. As of now we don’t manufacture. We make the pharma grades only in uk. But it’s an opportunity to manufacture in India.
Unidentified Participant
Okay, thank you very much and wish you all the best. Thank you.
operator
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Aditya from DB Security. Please go ahead.
Unidentified Participant
Hi sir. Thank you very much for taking my question. So I had a quick question based on your initial comments. You said the number of the volumes are increasing on the India front now and other regions. Right. Would it be enough to compensate for the decline you’re seeing in other region?
R Mukundan
Decline of what?
Unidentified Participant
In the sense that your decline in terms of the prices and your presentation says that some sort of a demand is tapering down in us, Europe and China as well. Right? Yeah.
R Mukundan
So I think in UK we don’t sell soda ash anymore. I think it’s mainly the soda ash sold which is bought from the us, which we sell to customers with whom we have contracts in. We don’t manufacture soda ash. What I meant was the capacity which went out in UK will get compensated during the course of the year by India and Kenya put together. India’s already added 230. There’s another 50,000 tonnes which is coming in Kenya. So that should compensate for the loss of volume. So we’ll be able to go back to our volume which existed when UK used to operate fully soda ash.
In terms of bicarbonate, there is a minor reduction in US UK of I think 40, 40,000 ton which we used to go to the flu gas treatment market because in India we’ve already added 140,000 tonnes. I think our net increase in bicarbonate will be 100,000 tonnes already. And salt, we have added 70,000 ton in UK of the high grade pharma salt and our capacities in India are fully operational. And there’s further expansion coming on stream which we will review during the course of the year and come back to you.
Unidentified Participant
So just to follow up on that, would that compensate for any increase in the production on the India side? Right. Will it help us sustain The EBITDA above the last year margin because it’s now below 10%. Right. And there has been a steady decline. I understand that the volumes are going up but pricing pressure remains. Right. If certain markets do well.
R Mukundan
Correct. So Aditya, the pricing pressure remains and I think what we’ve done is we’ve reconfigured our UK operation. That should be an upside next year. So that should. That should get. That should fix because our costs were high and we were having negative margins there. That is no longer there. And I mentioned that UK will transition to the same situation which we have in Kenya, which is a profitable unit and our India would continue to. So you have three units which will be clearly in the positive zone. US exports remain a bit of a challenge.
But we will work our way through that through ensuring cost and operational efficiencies. So you should. You could wait for the operational details as we move along quarter one and quarter two. That would give you an indicator of the way we are going to be transitioning into next year. The last two quarters are not a reflection of what the company is planning to do next year.
Unidentified Participant
Okay. Sir, would you like to give some guidance on where the EBITDA margin should look like for FY26?
R Mukundan
We don’t give guidance, Aditya, but I think that’s what I mentioned. As the year unfolds by quarter two, you would have a clear direction of where we are.
Unidentified Participant
Okay. Okay. So your second last question, sir. With the tariffs coming along, right. Do you see that because there is a clear pressure on China. Do you see some of those export volumes might be given to us or can we basically take advantage of that in case if there is a sustained pressure on exports out of China.
R Mukundan
I think in our view we have not factored any of the major issues around tariff. It may lead to rebalancing of supply demand centers. And as of now from the centers we manufacture we have not seen a major shift in the way we need to rebalance our market portfolio. And we’ll keep updating you every quarter because this is a fast moving situation and we cannot project for the future as we speak. Our view is that our production center and market portfolio we are not seeing any major shipments in the demand patterns as we see. But if there’s a substantial change, we’ll update you at the end of the first quarter.
Unidentified Participant
Okay, sir, thank you very much. And all the rest.
R Mukundan
Thank you.
operator
Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. We’ll take that as a last question. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Armakundan for closing comments.
R Mukundan
Thank you. Thank you for joining the call today to all the participants. While the market conditions remain challenging, our endeavour is to excel in operations through innovation, digital and customer delight. We continue our journey to embedded sustainability guided by Project Alingana which the entire Tata group is focused on. Our focus is to expand the core while being calibrated and this will also include broadening the portfolio with high grade and high value added products. As highlighted in the previous calls, market remained range bound and the pricing scenario would continue as it is, at least in the immediate term.
We expect over a period of time the market profiles to change and especially the positive benefits of sustainability as a driver will come into play. In terms of our approach, we would continue to focus on ensuring cost optimization and focusing on becoming more competitive. We will also be looking at ways and means to improve our capital program including working capital. And we look forward to seeing all of you in quarter one of FY26. Thank you all and safe days ahead. Thank you.
operator
Thank you very much on behalf of Tata Chemicals limited. That concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us and you may now disclose connector lines. Thank you.
Unidentified Participant
Thank you.