Tata Chemicals Ltd (NSE: TATACHEM) Q4 2026 Earnings Call dated May. 04, 2026
Corporate Participants:
R. Mukundan — Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer
Nandakumar S. Tirumalai — Chief Financial Officer
Analysts:
Saurabh Jain — Analyst
Sumant Kumar — Analyst
Vivek Rajamani — Analyst
Ankur Periwal — Analyst
Rohit Nagraj — Analyst
Arjun Khanna — Analyst
Abhijit Akella — Analyst
Aatur Shah — Analyst
Saket Kapoor — Analyst
Presentation:
Operator
Good evening ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the Q4 and 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, please signal an operator by pressing Star then zero on your touchtone phone. We have with us today R. Mukundan, Managing Director and CEO; and Nandakumar Tirumalai, 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. I now invite R. Mukundan to begin proceedings of the call.
R. Mukundan — Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you. Thank you, Darwin. Good evening and welcome everyone to our Q4FY26 earnings call, and I’ll start the discussion with brief overview of industry and then our operational highlights across business and geographies.
The demand scenario across geographies, global demand is expected to be broadly flat in the near term constrained by weak macroeconomic conditions and more specifically amongst all our products, just the soda ash excess capacity. The recent Middle east conflict has driven up the energy and the raw material prices increasing production cost across various parts of the world, especially other than us. Also it has increased our shipping and transportation expenses. Despite these pressures, I think there is no clear evidence as of now at present of demand erosion but however, a prolonged conflict could begin to wane on demand. India continues to exhibit relatively robust demand growth with higher capacity utilization across all sectors.
China and US are witnessing flat demand, mainly in US it’s due to the reduced offtake in the container glass segment. The geopolitical risk and ongoing tariff uncertainties continue to cloud the global demand visibility and this tariff uncertainty is mainly with respect to US China tariff issues. While the pace of economic recovery is expected to be slow in the year ahead, we do believe solar glass and lithium carbonate are expected to continue to drive demand especially since the world is expected it would certainly pivot towards more renewable and more natural energy sources and soda ash globally would be gaining from this growth in this segment. In terms of supply scenario across geographies, China inventories remain elevated. The market sentiment softened slightly during the quarter Q4.
In addition to that I think while several things happened, the Chinese units did begin to slow down and carry out their maintenance work. One unit which is about 800,000 poo blaze plant sort of had an expiration of production permit and it has started to do maintenance work. We also know in US one of the producers with 1.36 million ton capacity has also mothballed this plant. Solvay as we know already had done about 180,000 tonnes of reduced production from their Spanish plant and this process is only going to help us to balance the demand supply equation.
In terms of pricing, while in the month of March there were certain corrections, what did happen? Towards the end of March the prices saw a slight increase to compensate for energy and raw material prices and higher shipping cost. US domestic prices remained flat. China spot export offers remained steady between 150 and 170 and this resulted in Southeast Asia prices remaining unremunerative especially for the US producers. Overall pricing is expected to remain range bound and react to mainly the energy cost increases which some of the producers may pass on.
Now I will move to operational highlights. In terms of the consolidated performance the revenue was down by 2% at 3438 crores compared to previous year. It was offset the lower exports from US was offset by higher volumes. In India EBITDA was at 274 crores compared to 327 Q4 order mainly on account of subdued prices across all geographies. An exceptional charge of 1,837 crores is provided on account of impairment of goodwill in US and rupees 159 crores of deferred tax write off. This tax write off is expected to be reviewed once the unit starts to making profits.
Profit after tax before exceptional item was negative 279 crores compared to negative 12 last year. Net debt without leases as on March 31st stood at 5961 crore. In terms of standalone the revenue from operations stood at 1,254 crores up 3% compared to previous year. Same quarter EBITDA at 216 was down by 6% due to lower realization and profit after tax from continuing operations was 48 crores down 51% due from Q4 of last year. During the year during the quarter we acquired NOAA Bay Singapore. This acquisition was completed on 19th March 2026.
In addition to this 50 kilotons of electric calciner soda ash in Kenya was operationalized unit wise in India. This non soda in India Gujarat facility achieved 1 million tons of soda ash production. The performance is higher compared to previous year. However price drop was offset by higher volume due to mainly due to higher volumes. Drop in EBITDA is due to increase in fixed cost compared to previous year. US export volumes are lower and Southeast Asia market realizations were unremunerative and I spoke about the impairment charge and the deferred tax write off recognized in the books.
UK has lower revenue due to lower volumes partly offset by pricing. PVT is higher than previous year. Increase in volumes in Kenya was partially offsetting the lower realization. Singapore acquisition as I mentioned was completed during the quarter. Rallis saw an overall revenue growth of 6%, volume growth of 5% and price growth of 1% driven by growth in both crop care and seed business. Overall, when you look at the context of strategy, the non soda ash revenue grew 14% from 6118 crores in FY25 to 6946 crore in FY26.
This is in line with companies focus to grow non cyclical business and non soda ash business. In conclusion, geopolitical developments since in West Asia in late February have led to disruption in supply chain. These have resulted in higher costs. This impact has been varied across geographies. However, overall sales performance remains steady. Management is focused on reinforcing supply chain planning, maintaining cost discipline, improving operational agility to address near term disruptions. Our priorities remain firmly aligned to protecting margin, preserving cash flows and maintaining balance sheet strength. We also continue to adopt a very disciplined approach to capital allocation and we want to ensure resilience through this current phase of cycle. We would be focusing on growing non soda ash revenue in line with long term strategic objectives.
With that, I close my comments and hand it back to moderator to open for Q&A.
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 their Touchstone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press Star and two participants are requested to please use handsets while asking a question and please limit themselves to two questions per participant. You may rejoin the queue in case you need to ask further questions. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now wait for a moment while the question queue assembles.
Our first question comes from the line of Saurabh Jain from HSBC. Please go ahead.
Saurabh Jain
Hi. Thank you for the opportunity. Can you please expand a bit on the disruptions that you’re noticing because of the Middle east conflict? In particular, how is it impacting your raw material sourcing across your regions and any outlook you would have that if the conflict stretches from here, can it materially impact your availability to procure the raw material?
R. Mukundan
Thank you, Saurabh. I think firstly I would say that US Operations remains largely insulated from this Disruptions. The UK operation also largely is insulated because the key element for them is the brine, which they weaned from their own brine wells. In addition to that, they did see some increase in spike in the unhedged portion of the gas. But this is only a price issue, not an availability issue, and part of the price increase. We have also informed the customers and have also made the requisite changes there.
With respect to India, India, thankfully, has been working with imported coal, mainly from Indonesia, which is not disrupted. It’s continuing as we speak. Of course, there’s a moment in pricing for which we’ve taken a cost, for which we’ve taken price changes. Our biggest issue in India has been mainly the availability of imported limestone. While we have adequate stock, we’ve also moved to blended domestic and imported limestone, which is enabling us to run the unit well. And at least we don’t see any big issues for the next three months.
I would say amongst all the units, the one which probably we need to watch closely is the Kenyan unit, which depends on HFO. As of now, I think they’ve got about 40 days of supply. We are monitoring this closely and HFO comes from Middle East and we need to ensure that we have alternate sources about which we’re working through the system.
So, all in all, I think except for one key element, which is HFO, which is bought for Kenya, all of the units are absolutely safe and sound from the input disruptions. The big issue for us, which we are trying to monitor is while we have passed on the cost increases to customers, would any of our customers be under pressure in terms of the impact from this crisis? Up to now, we have not seen it in the marketplace, but we remain completely watchful on that account.
Saurabh Jain
Understood. Do we also have any ammonia needs in our domestic India manufacturing?
R. Mukundan
Yeah, I think there has been a notification on ammonia. I’m glad you brought that up, because while it is a very small quantity, it is nonetheless a quantity which is which is cycled through in terms of one tanker for every 15 days or so. And up to now we have adequate supply. We are able to source from the market, but I think the fertilizer units have been advised not to supply to non fertilizer users.
We have returned to government that this order is going to impact all of us. As of now, we are fine, but I think we are closely monitoring it and we are also sure government will look into this. It’s about 1% of the entire ammonia consumption in the country and hence should not disrupt the fertilizer for the farmers, but at the same time it would be made available to the industry as freely as it was before. I think we wouldn’t have any issues with respect to any of our production challenges in India.
Saurabh Jain
Understood. That is very helpful. A related question will be that you talked about cost inflation you’re noticing in different production facilities across the region. Can you also give us some sense what kind of price hikes you would have taken in different regions and also whether all of the raw material cost inflation that you would have been noticing now does it also need more price hikes or everything is factored in?
R. Mukundan
In terms of the price impact, I think the cost impact, if you look at us, it’s mainly in the diesel which is used in the diesel vehicles which we run in the plant for the mobile units which are there and overall in the cost structure it is not a big number and we are more or less hedged in terms of our gas. So I don’t think there’s going to be a big issue there. What we are certainly doing is the shipping costs have increased. So to our customers when we ship them, these are being passed on to customers in a very transparent manner.
We are not doing beyond what is the cost increase in terms of UK. Certainly we have informed the customers. But the issue in UK, why I’m not commenting is our unedged portion actually moves on a daily basis. So if I pick a day where the spike is high then it will look like the position is uncovered and we are not recovering fully if I pick another day where it is. So I think we would rather wait for a month or so to say whether the cost price increase is fully covering the cost or not. As of now, on a weighted average basis it does cover, but we know only at the end of as we move along in the direction move forward.
As far as India is concerned, again we’ve covered the cost increases fully, whatever we had in terms of the energy cost as well as the additional cost to get the transport material from the markets in both in Indonesia and in Middle east for limestone and coal respectively. So all in all, in all places we have been able to pass on the increase. Kenya too has done the same. But in Kenya it’s not a price issue, it’s availability issue which we are working through. And as I mentioned, we are hopeful the next shipment will enable us to go beyond the 45 day cover we have today.
Saurabh Jain
Understood. Okay, sure. A related question would be that, you know, if the RM costs kind of don’t really kind of increase from here, is it A safe assumption that the margins that we delivered in 4Q that those are the bottom margins and if the costs don’t increase materially from here, there is a possibility that we could do better on the profitability or you still would believe some sort of margin pressure could sustain in the 1Q as well.
R. Mukundan
So I can only speak about what we have witnessed up to now and this is something which could change in future. I think we are fully covered and as far as the numbers are concerned, I think they should reflect what we’ve seen going forward. If something happens dramatic that we cannot engage, we’ll have to probably come to and talk to all the analysts and investors. But as of now, we are fully covered. What we are watching is the Kenyan situation.
Saurabh Jain
Understood. Okay. And are you also noticing any inclinations from your customers to try to ask for to shift away from the short term contract into the midterm contract, soda ash, any that kind of excitement? Are you noticing any of those things?
R. Mukundan
All I can say is that customers have become now more sensitive to domestic sourcing because they have realized the difficulty of depending on imports. So we are seeing, witnessing, I can say, especially in India, those who are importing have certainly have made request to us to increase the allocation because their view is that going forward they would like to reduce the dependency on imports while they will maintain a share of imports versus domestic supply. The realization that they would not want to take a risk on the imported material is a positive on the market front.
Saurabh Jain
Sure. Thank you so much and all the best. I joined that with you.
Operator
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, you are requested to please restrict yourselves to two questions only. You may rejoin the queue if you have any further questions. Our next question comes from the line of Sumant Kumar from Motilal Oswal. Please go ahead.
Sumant Kumar
My question is for us sequentially we have seen an improvement in Victor from loss to profit. So can we. Can we say this is because of. You have cut down your export where you are, we are making losses. And also if it is so, what is the mix of domestic sales for U.S. And export?
R. Mukundan
You’re right. I think broadly you would, you would. You’re attributing to not. Not selling in the unremunerative markets which today for us is mainly Southeast Asia. That is what has happened during the, during the quarter.
Sumant Kumar
And regarding fuel cost in this quarter, to what extent we have an impact because of higher fuel cost in the market across geography?
R. Mukundan
No, in terms of cost I think we have no impact at all. I think because usually we have different levels of stock and different, different positions of hedging. For example, in India we usually carry three to four months of stock and I think that more or less would help us to work through and I think if at all any increases will come through going forward. So we do know the coming shipments are going to be expensive. So we have actually spoken to customers and taken the corrective actions there. As far as the US is concerned, as I mentioned, the gas is fully hedged and I think we are keeping a watch on those prices.
Our biggest issue continues to be in Kenya where I think while we have a cover for 45 days beyond that cover, I think we’ve got to buy at the market rate. And the market rate has actually shot up quite a bit in terms of going up almost 50 to 60% which we will, which we are engaged with customers and have informed them and we are dealing with this in a very transparent basis.
Sumant Kumar
Thank you so much.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes on the line of Vivek Rajamani from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Vivek Rajamani
Hi sir, thank you so much for the presentation. You did mention that you are seeing a few closures or some capacity sticking maintenances. You did give examples capacity in the US and in China. Just with respect to that, could you just talk about how soda ash flows have started to change if they have because of the conflict and if you could see some relief with respect to, you know, some of the regions potentially slowing their exports or you could see some relief in terms of pricing which you were obviously suffering because there was a lot of dumping that was happening. So are you starting to see some sort of relief because of these flows or do you expect that to kind of happen over the next couple of quarters?
R. Mukundan
See, I think what we are certainly seeing is the imports have slowed down. They’ve become almost half of what it used to be pre conflict and that’s a net effect. The result of the slowing down of exports which Iran was doing as well as Turkey which was coming through the Red Sea. I think those two have certainly slowed. Also the movement from other exporters have reduced during the period because I’m talking about the first month of April, what we are. But this trend is likely to continue in our view.
So certainly in India we are seeing an impact of. And also customers are also very clearly wanting to have a higher share of domestic supplies. I think that’s all we can say in terms of any other pressure point in terms of prices coming down. It’s actually going up because shipping costs have increased. So the landed cost in India has gone up because of the shipping cost.
Vivek Rajamani
Sure, sir. That’s clear. But it will also be fair to say that the increase is purely a cost of an exercise. So margins will potentially have to wait for a bit longer to kind of benefit. Would that be a fair statement?
R. Mukundan
It would vary between market to market, but it’s a fair statement. Also, there’s a play which will happen because of rupee depreciation that also brings in a natural protection for the Indian market. So we’ll see all these effects play out. So we do believe that it’s going to be positive for domestic producers and domestic sales in every part of the world.
Vivek Rajamani
Sure, sir, thanks. Just one last clarification on UK, you were reporting positive numbers for the last 3 quarters. Could you just explain what happened this time around with respect to EBITDA? Thank you.
R. Mukundan
Yeah. This time the main decision which we had taken was there were certain operational changes which we had to do with respect to product and product production capability and capacity. We preponed the shutdown which was planned in April, into the month of March. This was done proactively to have a better run on next year. And that’s the impact you’re seeing in terms of numbers. Otherwise it would go back to the normal number. In fact, because of the preponing of the maintenance, we do believe that we’ll be have much better operating parameters than what we had before.
Vivek Rajamani
Sure, sir. Thank you. And all the very fast.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Ankur Periwal from Axis Capital. Please go ahead.
Ankur Periwal
Yeah, hi, sir. Thanks for the opportunity. First question. You know, in your opening remarks, you did highlighted, you know, some plants either going for a longer sort of maintenance or maybe mouthwalling. Does it change the overall demand supply dynamics given the incremental supply that was coming from China?
R. Mukundan
No, I think see the point which I want to highlight on China is that their inventories are fairly high. Even today the inventories are close to 1.5 to 1.8 million tonnes, but it’s been stable. I think unless the stock levels come down, we cannot see the major impact flowing through to market. So we will sort of highlight this inventory level in every quarter. As of now, I think it’s pretty range bound. As I highlighted the Chinese prices, while they do show an increase in dollar terms, in the renminbi terms, they have remained more or less flat at about 1250 renminbi or so per ton.
Ankur Periwal
Sure, sir. And just a follow up there, there was an expectation that probably, you know, the synthetic, the older plants in China may see A shutdown with this natural sort of, you know, production increasing. Any updates, anything on that side or it’s still the same capacity.
R. Mukundan
It’s the same capacity. But they’re running. Many of them are taking a maintenance closure and many of them are running at a lower utilization. But clearly what, what I would say is that the, the early signs are that we are beginning to see some, some movement. But it’s not today of a number which is of a substantial nature to sort of highlight. So I would certainly say that it is beginning and the numbers are also showing. We also looked at the listed companies and their financial numbers. Their operating parameters are under financial under stress.
Ankur Periwal
Sure, sir. And just lastly on our, you know, the cash flow generation from the business, we have seen a sharp dip in operating cash flows which is, you know, in a way being led by the working capital decline as well. Sorry, increase as well. So any thoughts there? How should one look at you know, the cash flow generation across the businesses or is there any one entity which is impacting, you know, the overall company’s cash flow? So your comments over there. Thank you.
R. Mukundan
No, I think fundamentally the. We have to ensure that we exit from unremunerative market which you have done. I think barring for last quarter we. We did do one shipment to Southeast Asia which was unremunerative because there was already a pre existing contract. Other than that we have now stopped it. So we would only see this improve going forward. And also since we are focusing more on domestic and the proportion is mostly higher with domestic, you would also find that the working capital cycle improved and that should also release some cash.
Ankur Periwal
Sure sir. That’s helpful. That’s it from my side. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Rohit Nagraj from 360 ONE Capital. Please go ahead.
Rohit Nagraj
Yeah, thanks for the opportunity. The first question is in terms of the increase in operating cost given that we are safeguarded from the inventory. But generally speaking, increase in the fuel cost as well as the logistic cost. What would be the increase in opaques across our four facilities given that if the new high cost utilities come into play. Thank you.
R. Mukundan
I can’t give a specific number. All I can say is that the logistic cost cost on the output side is mostly a pass through for customers because they do. It’s part of the contractual arrangement which we have. Whereas the input cost increases. What I said, we’ve already transparently communicated to customers and passed on those increases. And in all the units it’s been more or less been at par with what our cost increase has been except in UK where I said because of the fluctuating gas price prices we are not able to pin down but on an average it is fully passed down to the customers.
Rohit Nagraj
Sure, sure. And second question is you talked about multiple capacities getting you know in shutdowns or probably extended shutdowns. Has this happened particularly post the conflict or was happened before that? I mean how just to get understanding about what in all capacities have been shut or how much capacity has been shut post conflict and the earlier was adding to is not there in the system. Thank you.
R. Mukundan
Yeah, I think most of them had initiated this process. I think pre conflict or conflict is only broadly may have accelerated their decision. So I would not because we are talking about a period in quarter where the conflict was the visible effect started to show itself towards the end of March. So really I think this was a pre conflict issue. We are monitoring the situation and we’ll give the better update in terms of post conflict. What are the changes in the next quarter results?
Rohit Nagraj
Thanks a lot. All the best.
Operator
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Arjun Khanna from Kotak Mutual Fund. Please go ahead.
Arjun Khanna
Sure. Thank you for taking my question. My first query is on our new CAPEX plan. So we have enumerated almost 15 crores of additional CapEx. Could you help us with what kind of IRR we expect to generate on this project, these four projects?
R. Mukundan
Sorry. I think if you look at the capacity expansion which is immediate which is 100 crore which is what will come on stream immediately in about 12 to 14 months time this return is expected to be upwards of 20% which is our cutoff. And this is a debottlenecking on our current plant because we do believe with the current steam capacity we can produce more and the market needs more every year. The precipitated silica plant is under undergoing detailed review in terms of various elements. But if this CAPEX were to stay this will be towards anywhere between 15 to 20% at the low end or 20% at the higher end.
The TENSAS is actually repurposing of our existing plant. So bulk of the expenditure is on repurposing and this probably is going to be the least cost cost dense ash plant built anywhere. And we would be exiting after the decision is taken from our cement business and will be using the same facilities to make dense ash and Valinokam by the same token again is in the range of 20%. So…
Arjun Khanna
Sir, just on the Vanimukam if one looks at the intensity it is almost capital intensity is 2x that of Metapur. So why would IRR be 20% unless a selling price is double?
R. Mukundan
No, I think the big issue you, you know, which I want to highlight is the in salt cost structure, Production cost is 1:1 element but the logistic cost is equally…
Arjun Khanna
The freight, right.
R. Mukundan
So what we will be saving in this is primarily the southern markets and we have mapped out the southern markets can take easily the easy. So what we will probably have a slightly higher capital cost is more than offset by the logistic cost which we’ll be saving.
Arjun Khanna
Sure. And we generally sell this to a group company, right, Tata Consumer. So in terms of our contracts, is it on a cost plus basis? I know in 2019 during the time of demerger we had mentioned, has there been any change in the agreement since then and what are we currently making on related party transactions?
R. Mukundan
No, all this is part of the same structure and we are continuing to do exactly as it has been approved by the board and our arrangements remain the same. And this has also been reviewed by the management of Tata Consumer and which is one of the reasons we are going ahead with it.
Arjun Khanna
So just to understand, for the iodized salt we are looking at 15 to 20% IRR for these projects. Obviously Soda ash will be very remunerative and just on the precipitated silica plant. So current HDS prices and if you look at various grades it seems to be at around 80 rupees a kilo. So I don’t get how you’d be making 15% to 20% margins.
R. Mukundan
Sorry, on…
Arjun Khanna
IRR, on the Cuddalore facility.
R. Mukundan
Yeah. I think see the big big difference is that we are in South India and silica is a very bulk commodity and logistic cost is extremely high. We are the only unit which will be in south. Rest of the units are in Gujarat. There’s a freight cost difference between them and we are supplying only the fire industry.
Arjun Khanna
Sure. Maybe I’ll take this later. Just a follow up. And the last question is given that we have taken a write down of goodwill in the US given soda ash prices, does that mean that logically we won’t be undergoing any capex in the US market?
R. Mukundan
No, indeed we had made it clear that our capex for the soda ash business is going to be only when the cycle returns and we are very clear about it. And the capacity which we spoke about. Dense ash is a repurposing of the existing plant. Other than that we have no other plans in terms of investment there. Our investments are fundamentally focused on non Soda ash businesses which is bicarbonate, salt and bromine and various other chemicals. And that’s what we are focusing because this is the cycle is still not complete. Only when we get a very clear sign that the cycle is shifting is when we start investing.
Arjun Khanna
And our net debt ex leases close to 6,000 crores. How do you see that play out over the next year? What capexes do we have lined up for FY27?
R. Mukundan
Nandu, you want to…
Nandakumar S. Tirumalai
Yeah. Around 1,300 crores capex for next year. And next year we expect the debt to remain similar levels because the pressure on the business is there for next year also broadly so we expect the debt to be more or less a similar level as current year March ending 26. You may not change…
Arjun Khanna
And Capex — and what spending this 1300 crores on?
Nandakumar S. Tirumalai
See mostly on maintenance capex we have in Both Bitapore and US some capex from Valinokam Silica and some capex also Singapore we acquired a company recently. So broadly is maintenance capex in all geographies mainly Mitapur and US and growth CapEx in south and Singapore.
Arjun Khanna
Sure. Thank you and wishing you all the best.
Nandakumar S. Tirumalai
Thank you, Arjun.
Operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Abhijit Akella from Kotak Securities. Please go ahead.
Abhijit Akella
Yeah, greeting. Thank you so much sir. Just two from my side. One is with regard to the valuation review that was conducted for the US operations did that cover the mining rights assets also that are part of the US books? I believe those are fairly large amount.
Nandakumar S. Tirumalai
Yeah, I talk about that. See in the US gap there’s no one say there’s only a India India concept. Yeah, there’s only goodwill in the US books. So mining is only in the India and the IFRS part here. So we only impaired the goodwill and not the mining rights. So $208 million is the impairment of goodwill which is there. The mining rights remains intact. US no money. Right. Goodwill.
Abhijit Akella
Okay. But were these mining rights also assessed in terms of you know the. The value of that they carry at this point in time by the value.
Nandakumar S. Tirumalai
See, we value entire business as a whole and then we see what is the value worth now the shortfall. First we run goodwill. This 208 is only goodwill which means the mining rights are intact in the Indian days books.
R. Mukundan
And we are depreciating the mining.
Nandakumar S. Tirumalai
Yeah. Over 100 years based upon the life. So we take a write up every year 100 for last 10 years. Now going forward that is a gradual drop in that based upon the mined up leftover. So Broadly, that’s the way we look at things here.
Abhijit Akella
Okay, got it. And just the other one on the silica plant at Kadalur, the 775 crore investment. So would it be possible to just help us with you know, the broad expected revenues and maybe from that project, the 50,000 tons we are putting up,
Nandakumar S. Tirumalai
We will do it offline. We can’t talk about that here and we’ll do it separately. The next call will update you. Watching all of people I thought very early stages now here but we’ll talk about more about them maybe in the Q1 quarterly call.
Abhijit Akella
Okay, but I mean 20%, you know, ROCE would mean something like say 150 crore order earnings EBIT from that project. Would that be a fair assessment?
Nandakumar S. Tirumalai
Based upon those numbers? And we’ll talk more about that maybe in end of Q1 and the assessment is done based upon a market view of what’s going to happen. And if you look at this plant, there’s no, I mean incremental fixed cost. It’s the same plant only going to have there. So the, so we go into the same location, add more capacities and therefore the fixed cost would remain same. So you get operating leverage there. Therefore you’ll be ending up earning more EBITDA per ton. That’s a broad concept. It’s not a greenfield. It’s more like a. Within the same location adding more machines to their people being more or less constant.
R. Mukundan
Yeah, it is in that range. It’s broadly in the range. Yeah, obviously.
Abhijit Akella
I see. Okay. Yeah. Because I mean the 775 crores is all incremental capex. Right? I mean, you know. Yeah, yeah. Okay. All right, I’ll take it offline. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Aatur from ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund. Please go ahead.
Aatur Shah
No, thanks. My questions have been answered. Thanks.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Saket Kapoor from Kapoor company. Please go ahead.
Saket Kapoor
Hope I’m audible.
R. Mukundan
Yeah.
Saket Kapoor
Yes sir. Firstly, what are what are the signs of the incremental demand from the solar gas glass manufacturers? Particularly some new capacities were anticipated to commercialize for the current financial year. And what’s the outlook going ahead especially from the solar glass. And then sir, the update on the re initiation of the anti dumping duty, sir, what’s the update on the same. This is my question.
R. Mukundan
So I think the ADD is the thing which is being investigated along with ADD is also safeguard duty which will have quantity restriction. That’s what the government is looking at. Rather than just put Duty on. They also want to let the quantity restrict restrictions in place. The second piece is on the solar glass. I think it’s safe to assume that when the solar glass units are running we would be anywhere between approximately 7,500 10,000 tons of demand every month for the dense ash incrementally during the initial period. But we’ll come back to the exact specific how this demand is going to grow as each one of the units comes on stream.
Saket Kapoor
As per the program outlined by the solar glass manufacturer. What is the anticipated demand? Have you worked out a number on the same? I think the big projects are coming?
R. Mukundan
Which is the main reason we severe we are doing this unit in the conversion of Dense ash plant cement plant to dense ash plant is to cover that demand. We do expect at least 50% utilization as it comes on stream and the balance with the growth which is why we are doing the repurposing of the cement unit.
Saket Kapoor
Okay. And sir, currently with the type of geopolitical scenario playing out and imported material hindrance, what kind of. How are the imports being affected on a monthly basis from the other geographies into the country?
R. Mukundan
Yeah, I think broadly one would say that anywhere between 70 to 80,000 tons or 1 lakh ton was the imports depending on which month you pick up. And that is reduced to half right now.
Saket Kapoor
Okay. And those are supporting the domestic volume from the being supplied by the domestic players. That is how it is getting
R. Mukundan
That is what has happened. There’s a the increased focus on the domestic players and we are supporting the Indian customers as well as we can from the domestic. All the players are doing the same.
Saket Kapoor
In terms of this flue gas part of the story. How is the sodium bicarbonate demand currently shaping up and what are our utilization levels in terms of the same?
R. Mukundan
I want to have the exact number of how much, what percentage of our output goes there. You know we increased our output from about 140,000 tonnes to 200,000 ton in India. It’s fully sold out now. And with the increased production from power from coal fired plants, this demand is going to continue to grow. And the biggest buyer is of course NTPC and we do work with them very closely.
Saket Kapoor
Last point is on the freight and forwarding charges. When we look at the standalone number, the volume increases I think so from 2:15,000 to 2:22,000. Whereas the freight and forwarding charges have gone up from 148 crore to 166 crore. And similarly the employee benefit costs have also risen significantly from 67 crore to 84 crores. So what explains these two?
R. Mukundan
So the employee one is the year end adjustments which we make. I think if you. It’d be ideal if you took the full year number which is 293 versus 313 on the employee side and on. On the. On the freight side. You want to get back number?
Nandakumar S. Tirumalai
Yeah. Come back on that separately. I don’t have the numbers offhand.
Saket Kapoor
Okay. It is a 10 percenter. I think so it’s a higher amount. 20 crore. Yeah. More than. More than that. From 150 to 160. 166 store where the volume has not risen commensurate to that. So that that was the reason for partly in the non soda as revenue. What are we including in the 6,000 crore revenue part. So what is the major item that we have?
R. Mukundan
Everything other than soda ash fundamentally Bicarbonate salt, silica, FOS, bromine, chlorine cement, also Rallis, all that is included in this.
Saket Kapoor
Thank you sir. And all the best to the team.
R. Mukundan
Thank you.
Nandakumar S. Tirumalai
Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. We have no further questions. Ladies and gentlemen, I would now like to hand the conference over to R. Mukundan for closing comments. Over to you sir.
R. Mukundan
Thank you for joining the call today. It’s been a difficult quarter and a difficult operating environment. But I think what we are focused on is disciplined execution. Strengthening the supply chain responsiveness, maintaining strict cost and cash flow discipline, reinforcing the portfolio action in terms of moving towards higher percentage of non soda ash business. These actions taken over the next few few quarters will improve further the outcomes in terms of margin and profitability.
Our commitment to customer service and operational continuity especially in the current times remains very focused. Our long term value creation remains one of the key top agendas which we have. For that we have an experienced team which is well positioned to manage the current uncertainties and continue to deliver sustainable performance for all shareholders. Thank you and see you all for the Q1 FY27 results.
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.