All plants restarted, Q4 should look better: Goa Carbon

A: Just to put the numbers in the right perspective as you rightly said we had a closure of our major plant that is in Paradeep where we had to face the closure due to pollution control board authorities asking for enhancing pollution control board measures.

The good news is that we have put all the plan now in to action and just as of last week we had the closure order releases so now the plant is in full swing in action. We have started production and the quarter four numbers would be much better because we have backlog of orders, which we need to process and dispatch at earliest.

Reema: In your statement you have indicated that due to the absence of viable export and domestic orders plants were shut down in Q3. Can you quantify what the export order book as well as the domestic order book now stands at and how does it compare with a year ago?

A: This one as far as the viable export orders is concerned, Goa plant is primarily export oriented and because the Calcined Petroleum Coke (CPC) prices worldwide were down we could not effectively compete. So we did not have any confirmed orders in hand for export.

Whereas the domestic situation is different we have sufficient orders with out major buyers such as Hindalco, NALCO as well as Vedanta and that is the plant where Paradeep operate. So most of our profit numbers would come from Paradeep.

Reema: So as of now still no export orders that the company has.

A: We do not have any big export orders as in hand we have enough domestic orders.

Reema: Can you quantify that number for us for the domestic order books at?

A: Domestic order right now would be roughly in the range of about a 100 thousand tonne so that is almost 50 percent of our capacity.

Nigel: With regard to your Bilaspur plant, I guess that is a rather smaller plant in comparison to the other two but that as well was shut for around 70 days in the past quarter why was that?

A: Bilaspur plant basically meets the requirements of non aluminium smelters but it meets the requirements of decarbonizer business that goes in to the steel foundries. They use when the prices are lower in the other segments that is pig iron prices. Use pig iron in relation to in competition to CP coke which we manufacture. So pig iron and price being down they opt for that and that is the reason Bilaspur plant was shut.

Nigel: I was looking at your January numbers roughly you would have done around Rs 13 crore in terms of sales. Now you have Paradeep that is coming on stream so on a month-on-month basis if all your three plants functions then what is the revenue you can look at in terms of month to month basis?

A: Revenue for the fourth quarter would be almost close to Rs 100 crore because we have huge backlog of orders. As I said both our Goa plant as well as Paradeep plant will run in full swing. Since the order book is very large that is almost a 100 thousand tonne we are running both Goa and Paradeep together now.

Nigel: When can you return back into the black because for your first nine months you have done Rs 130 crore you are saying you can do another Rs 100 crore so Rs 230 crore is what you will do? Can we have some time horizon may be FY16 when you return back to profitability as well?

A: In Quarter four, itself profit guidance would be positive. FY15-FY16 we would look at my own estimation considering most of the huge aluminium smelters in India have now got back to linkages whether it is bauxite or coal or power we should do much better numbers according to me.