Praj Industries Limited (PRAJIND) Q3 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Praj and Rashid Limited Q3 and 9-month FY26 earnings conference call. 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 the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star and zero on your touchstone phone. Please note that this conference has been recorded. I now hand the conference over to Ms. Burwangi Jain from Valoram Advisors. Thank you and over to you, ma'am.

Good afternoon, everyone, and a warm welcome to you all. My name is Pramangi Jan from Valoram Advisors. We represent the Investor Relations of Praj Industries Limited. On behalf of the company, I would like to thank you all for participating in the company's earnings conference call for the third quarter and nine months ended of the financial year 2026. Thank you. The purpose of today's earnings conference call is purely to educate and bring awareness about the company's fundamental business and financial quarter under review. Now let me introduce you to the management participating with us in today's earnings call and hand it over to them for their opening remarks. We have with us Mr. Ashish Kaikwad, Managing Director, and Mr. Sachin Rowley, Chief Financial Officer and Director of Resources. Without any delay, I now request Mr. Ashish to begin with his opening remarks. Thank you, and over to you, sir.

Good day, everyone. I welcome you to Praj Industries earnings call for the three and nine months performance of FY26. Trust all of you had an opportunity to go through our results for the quarter ended 31st December 2025. The external environment remained challenging for Praj in quarter three of FY26. We are able to deliver a steady quarter-over-quarter performance due to our focus on operations. However, we believe things are moving in the positive direction now, which will help our business to perform better in the times to come. I will first cover the external developments, and then I will talk about the updates on the Raj businesses. Recently, India announced trade agreements with the USA, EU, and the UK governments. The USA has announced the tariff reduction for Indian capital goods from almost 50% to 18%, and while there will be a 0% tariff from the exports to the EU markets. This will help our business to build a competitive advantage in these geographies. Also, import of ethanol from USA is not allowed, which is a reassuring news for the Indian ethanol market. In the Union Budget of 2026, our government has made several announcements. These announcements are expected to create opportunities in the sectors that we operate in. To strengthen the CBG ecosystem, the government announced phased mandatory blending of CBG into CNG for transportation fuel and also in the pipe natural gas for domestic use. The government has also announced central excise duty exemption on the biogas, and the component of that biogas blended into commercial viability and attractiveness of CBG. The budget also embarked on an outlay of 20,000 crores over the next five years for the development of carbon capture, utilization, and storage, or enabler for industrial decarbonization. This opens up opportunities for our CO2 capture solutions. Additionally, strategic initiatives such as the 10,000-crore Biopharma Shakti program aimed at positioning India as a global pharmaceutical manufacturing hub, and the schemes to promote semiconductor and electronic components manufacturing India will generate new growth avenues for Praja's water businesses. This week, our government's public policy think tank, NITIO, released a study report. It is titled Scenarios Towards Vikasit Bharat and Next Zero. It's an overview. The report highlights the expanding role of biofuels in the Next Zero journey. The report mentions that biofuels ensure our challenging sectors, particularly the aviation sector, long-haul freight transportation sector, and rural mobility sector, they must have an access to clean fuel alternatives. The report underscores the importance of biofuels in energy self-reliance as well. Ethanol, CBG, and other advanced biofuels, along with SAF, are set to remain an integral part of the country's clean mobility landscape over the upcoming years. It's a positive outlook for our businesses in the near future. Now coming to our Praj businesses updates. Our 1G domestic business is continuing to experience a slowdown in the green field projects due to supply and demand imbalance. However, we see strong traction in our brownfield solutions where our customers are prioritizing the operational efficiency improvements and value-added co-product additions, such as the distillers' corn oil. During the quarter, we secured a good number of DCO orders and have a good inquiry pipeline as well. On the project execution front, existing project execution cycles are still getting extended due to funding and other challenges scenario. Apart from the ethanol, bio-isobutanol or bio-IBA, the blending with diesel is another growth area that we are working on. I am happy to share that we have made progress in this technology development. The technology is ready for commercialization and scale-up. In the 1G international market, countries like Indonesia, Panama, Argentina, Guatemala, Costa Rica, and Bolivia have made positive announcements around increasing share of biofuels in their energy mix. We are engaged in these markets. On CBG front, slowly but steadily we are establishing our technology prowess on variety of feedstock. We have already proved performance of the CBG plants based on investment. Recently, we have commissioned two plants using neighbor graph and rice straw as mixed feedstock. These plants have started production, and the capacity ramp-up of these plants is underway. We are confident of demonstrating the rated performance on these plants. We will continue our journey of working on these and other feedstocks, And we hope that this sector gathers further momentum due to the positive announcements in the union budget. In our services business, there is a healthy order booking for performance enhancers as well as the biogenic CO2 capture solutions. The customer-installed base of Praj, which is developed over a decade, is a source of growth for our services business. On SAF front, there has been a good appreciation of our integrated ethanol to jet demo plant at our R&D center, Matrix. In recently concluded WIMS India 2026, in this conference, Mr. Manish Kumar, Joint Director General of BGCA, made the announcement of this development. While the draft policy of SAF blending is expected in the near future, this development is very important from technology readiness point of view. Praj has the ready technology to convert ethanol to jet. Currently, we are executing basic engineering orders of ethanol to SAF plants for our customers in the USA, and we are planning to complete this work by end of this fiscal. Moving to our engineering businesses, on the Praj GenX front, after a sharp slowdown in the ETCA, which is the energy transition and climate action segment, we mentioned about shifting our focus on traditional energy and some of the new segments. In the last few quarters, we worked with the new set of customers to get our GenX facility audited and certified and also entered into new framework agreements with some of the key customers. As a result of this, I am happy to share that we have received our first breakthrough order for the delivery of the CCUS kids from one of the global oil majors. This order is an outcome of a framework agreement which has potential for more work to come our way. The Union Budget 2026-27 introduced a one-time measure allowing Special Economic Zones, or SEZs, manufacturing units to sell goods in domestic tariff areas as well. This will help in serving the potential market in the segments of data centers and green energy initiatives to increase contract for a greenfield project to set up a large brewery in India. Our ZLD business received a significant order from one of the leading metal majors for integrated plant, offering effluent treatment, water recycle, and ZLD solution. Both the orders individually are valued over 100 crores. On the high purity front, apart from our traditional offerings such as high purity water systems and modular process systems, we are focusing on the precision fermentation area. I am happy to share that we received a key order for precision fermentation from M-Bio Ltd. in the hedge, the E3 policy. The business environment has started showing signs of improvement. We look forward to take these opportunities to profitably grow our businesses. With this, I will now hand over to Mr. Sachin Raleh for his comments on the financial performance. Thank you.

Thank you, Ashish. Good day, everyone. Let me take you through the financial highlights for the quarter and nine months ended 31st of December 2025. The consolidated income from operations stood at 8.41 billion in Q3 FY26, more or less the same as compared to the September quarter of 8.42 billion. PBT before exceptional items stood at Rs. 216 million in Q3 FY26 as compared to 296 in Q2 of FY26. Following the notification of the new labor codes issued by the Government of India on 21st of November 25, the company recognized an incremental 344 million impact arising from the increased gratitude and leave liabilities due to the revised definition of wages and enhanced employee benefits. Profit after tax stood at Rs-124 million in Q3 FY26 as compared The overall margins are impacted by almost 1% this quarter due to the reduction in the export revenue. For nine-month FY26, income from operation was $23.23 billion as against $23.7 billion in nine months of last financial year. PBTP4 exceptional items stood at $608 Export revenues accounted for 34% of Q3 of FY26, and of the total revenue, 71% is from Bionergy, 90% from Engineering, and 11% from PHS Business. The order intake during the quarter was $9.14 billion, with 68% from the domestic market. Of the total order intake, 45% came from Bionergy, 42% from Engineering, and balance 13% from PHS Business. The order backlog as of December 25 is at $44.91 billion, comprising of 66% of domestic orders. Cash in hand on 31st December 25 is $5.9 billion. I now conclude my remarks and would like to thank you all for joining us on this call. We would now be happy to discuss any questions, comments, or suggestions you may have.

We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and 1 on the touchstone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and 2. Participants are requested to use answers while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. From the line of Amit Anwani from PL Capital, please go ahead. Ms. Shah Anwani, your line has been unmuted. Please go ahead with your question. Spons from the current participant. The next question is from the line of Sani Vishay from Access Securities. Please go ahead.

Thanks for taking your question. I have a couple of them. So, first, on the margins first, we can see that gross margins are also impacted. So, do we see this as one time and can we expect it to improve? Similarly, employee and other expenses, I think you have managed to reduce strategically. So, what are our expectations on that fund as well?

Sorry, your question was not clear, but I could understand that you are asking for margin and the change in the employee expenses. Margin, the way in which if you look at from the cost of material point of view, it looks like that 8% cost of material has gone up. But if you look at the other expenses have gone down. Both these compensates each other, and when I mentioned that there is a change in the margin by 1% is including the other expenses because our project expenses sit into the other expenses. So, the execution was on a higher side, supply component was on a lower side, all both put together. If you look at from the margin point of view, then there is a change of 1% in the margin between September quarter and December quarter. Regarding employee benefit expenses, of course, the incremental cost which has come up on the past services account is sitting in the exceptional item and not in these years. And there is some kind of a rationalization which we have seen in the employee headcount and employee benefit in this quarter based on the last three quarters' performance. So that's the change which we have seen majorly on that account.

Yeah, but as you said, you have done rationalization. So it will only go up when the performance improves. Is that the right understanding? The second question is on the CCUS order. What are our quarterly expectations and when do we see this coming on the books? And the order book growth that has happened during the quarter mainly appears to be from this order and the binary segment actually saw a decline. So does it mean that the order intake may taper down in Q4?

I'll take that question. Firstly, as you must have noticed, that quarter over quarter, we have grown about 12.4% from Q2 of FY26 to Q3 of FY26. Secondly, if you see the mix between the orders, the portion of bioenergy has gone down, and the portion of the PHS and the engineering orders has gone up, right? And the reason for that is what we just highlighted in the beginning, that in the bioenergy sector, mostly on ethanol, because of the current imbalance between the demand and supply, the greenfield opportunities are, of course, not coming as much as they were in the previous years, right? And so, therefore, although that particular portion has gone down, we have been able to manage the quarter-over-quarter growth by growing our PHS and our engineering sector. These projects are also, in a way, beneficial because we are able to turn those orders into...

I'm trying to understand the trajectory for Q4. Do you mean that we'll be able to sustain this higher level of order intake from non-bioenergy business?

Yeah, I don't want to make the future statements on the numbers, but we certainly see that, you know, the bioenergy, especially on the ethanol side, we will see some subdued, you know, trajectory for the new greenfield projects. What we are going to now work on is the brownfield projects where the performance enhancement and efficiency improvement projects on the existing plants where we have existing customers is where our focus is going to be.

And, Sunny, if I may add, the CCOS opportunity which we just mentioned, technically it is bifurcated into two components. One is basically the process equipment which we can provide for the recovery solution, and another one is the skills or the modularization solution. So we have both the segments in the current order book, and this has not happened just from the quarter perspective. We are working on this development or we are working on this segment since last at least a year, and in the JNX also we started working when we decided that ETSA is not contributing to our order book And we need to do something else. We started developing the skill sets for these new technologies or new avenues which are opening up. So it is not only from the quarter point of view. It is actually from the overall growth or the new businesses which we are looking for. So this is forming a part of that bouquet in any case.

Understood. That's great. And any expectations on the run rate revenue or when it can start from the CCS

See, I would rather give some kind of view on the overall JNX story. We were always talking about that JNX will have the order coming up from the larger kind of a number. The change has just happened. This is the first order, and that is also, as Ashish mentioned earlier, It is under the larger framework agreement with our specific customer who has approved our facility and given us a clearance for this big order. We believe that this is just a beginning. I will not be able to tell you exactly what is going to happen in the next quarter, but we'll have to wait for one more quarter to see how the other customers are going to start placing order on JNX. But this is just the beginning.

Thank you for the detail, Dan.

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Sailesh Kanani from Centrum Broking. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone, and thanks for the opportunity. So, I have three questions. The first one, Ashisa, you on the opening remarks told about we are ready for ethanol blending with diesel on the commercial scale. So, I just wanted to know what things have changed from last quarter and the roadmap over there. My second question is something what Sachin kind of highlighted in terms of order and flow. We have kind of showcased many orders on the PPT. So can you walk us through any order details like timelines or margins? How would they kind of aid to our profitability in FI27-28? And third, on the Mangalore facility, we had earlier indicated that FI27 would be the year where we would break even. So any update on the same? That would be my three questions.

I'll hand it over to Sachin. So the first one that you mentioned was ethanol blending in diesel. That is not what I said in my opening remarks. What I said was we are working on bio-IBA or bio-isobutanol, which is different than ethanol, right? And there are scientific reasons why this is a molecule that is more amenable for blending in diesel. We can separately get into the details of that. And what we believe is that the transport sector in India majorly uses diesel. And when the government's agenda to use sectors like transportation sector, this can be an opportunity. And should it work, et cetera, clearly and skeletal.

Yeah, that's fine. You're right. But I just was wondering, anything has changed from last quarter? Because earlier, we always had that view that it is not commercially still kind of viable. So, has anything changed since last quarter?

Yeah, I think this is a continuous improvement process. You know, we keep working on the technology so that the efficiencies improve, the yields improve, and the technology becomes better and better. And as we get an opportunity to make, you know, the commercial plants, we will be able to further improve on it, right? But the direction of using a biofuel into diesel is what continues.

And any nudge from the government side with respect to this? Because earlier also the commentary has been that there are a couple of issues regarding the same.

Yeah, I think government is actively thinking about this. It's an alternative that, you know, is something being discussed. They have not yet announced anything officially, but certainly, you know, this is being debated.

Thanks, sir. That is useful.

I have two questions. Can you please give this second question, order booking related, What do you want to understand, Shailesh?

Sir, if you can walk us through any final details in terms of timelines when this order execution will start, and also in terms of margin profile, how would that kind of aid FI27-28 going ahead, basically. And my second, the third question was with respect to Manglord facility. We had earlier indicated that FI27 would be the break-even year. So, any update on that?

Okay. So, Ashish, we'll give you some kind of a highlight on the order booking and the timelines for that.

Yeah. So, I think we talked about three orders mainly in the opening remarks, Shalesh. Two orders in the engineering businesses, one which is a greenfield brewery and the other one which is a zero-liquid discharge project from a large metal manufacturing company. Both of them individually upwards of 100 crores. Now, these project executions have already started as we speak, and typically our execution period is in the range of about 12 to 14 months. So we do see the conversion of these orders in FY27. The third one which I talked to you about was this CCUS kids order from an oil major, which is a global order coming into our Gen X facility. Right, so it links to your third question as well. We expect that about 50% to 60% of this order will get converted into revenue in FY27.

And just to add regarding the break-even, what we mentioned earlier, I think we are on the course. We are still saying that we will be able to do that in the FY27. As I said, this is just the beginning of first order. We are handling a couple of more high-value orders in the different segments for the Mangalore facility, and quarter four is yet to get over, so depending on how we will close this quarter four, we will have far more clarity about how we will be seeing FY27 from Mangalore facility point of view.

Thanks a lot, sir. That's very useful, and best of luck, sir.

In order to ensure that the management is able to address questions from all participants in the conference, please limit your questions to two per participant. The next question is from the line of Aditya Mungia from Kotex Securities. Please go ahead.

A few questions from my side. As in some more clarity on why the EBITDA margins are taking the leg down would be useful. In our sense is that your revenue and backlog are fairly well reflecting similar numbers of export mix. So, I'm not sure why the export mix changes being activated to and declining in margins. That's my first question, and somewhere linked to that thing, where do you see, given where your backlog is, margins should be stabilizing in FY27? Because you would have a fair sense of the backlog and just the margins for FY27.

Amit, regarding the margin, we've been talking about what happened in the quarter of December, and what happened in the quarter of December. Quarter September was having a little higher export realization as compared to quarter of December. And back to the composition within these two quarters, we had delivered a little bit more on the Africa market side in this quarter as compared to the last quarter. Africa margins, as I earlier also mentioned, that we are actually executing a very big order, and that order is not only for supply of equipment, but it is also for the construction activity. Because of that, the margins are not generally what we get in the international market, because generally we only do a supply portion in the international market. So as I said, the larger component within this quarter's export is sitting from the African market, and that's the reason there is a drop in the margin as compared to the September margin. What was your second question?

As in, just linked up to this, so let's say if it's 5.6% that has happened for you on the console operations, as in, barring any changes in Gen X, should this be a steady run rate incrementally because it hasn't appeared to be higher on the counts that you said? Should one assume this kind of number?

The quarter-on-a-quarter improvement definitely, I mean, going forward, but it will take maybe one more quarter. We'll have to wait for quarter four to actually see how this development is going to span out, and importantly, which component of orders are getting executed, and to what extent we are in a position to absorb the Mangalore facility's fixed cost. So that is what is going to define. Maybe we'll have to wait for at least a quarter to say that now on a steadily basis,

Alongside this, the cash position of the company has been weakening, as in, if I just see your comments here and here, as in, over the last few years, your cash position only has gone down. I think on a Y-Y-B, it's a 6.4 has become 5.9 billion, as you said in your remarks. Why would that be happening and how to think through it?

Okay. So if you look at our cash position from quarter one, quarter two, quarter three has constantly gone up. Quarter one, we had mentioned that there was some kind of a slownessness had affected on the recovery of receivables and the piling up of inventory. But because the execution focus which we brought in in quarter two and quarter three, the receivables has also started improving and inventory also started getting diluted. Second one, the larger orders which we are executing from Kandla, that was also mentioned in the earlier quarter, that these are very large orders, and those orders will get dispatched over a period of time starting from quarter three and will get over in quarter four. So that liquidation of inventory has also started. But if you look at quarter one, quarter two, and quarter three, the cash position has improved.

Yeah, that I do understand. So, why are I still down? So, a little bit concerning from that perspective.

Sorry, Kandana orders were of a very high value, and the delivery cycle was almost 18 months for them. Even though we were having some milestone payments happening in between, but the larger component was linked to the dispatches of the last set of equipment, which has just started happening now. And that is how the cash flow position has got improved over the last three quarters.

Final question. Thanks for the color over here. You talked about SAF, the design part for the U.S. merger, happening by March end. By when will there be clarity as to who is going to get the plant order in this regard? And if any comments that you would want to make on CBT and why the scale-up is taking place?

I'll take those very quickly. So on the SAF, I mentioned that we are doing an engineering, detailed engineering services order, which is for one of our U.S. customers. This is going to be over by end of March or probably middle of April at most. After that, the customer looking at the detailed engineering estimations, et cetera, will take a decision on their investments. And so you'll have to wait for the quarter, because that's when we... We are making steady progress, if you've, you know, had a chance to listen to my opening remarks. We said that we are going slow and steady, because, you know, we are a technology company. We are making sure that the technology works. The press mud part is working really well. We have started two more plants, which are mixed feed, which is rice straw and nater grass. And we will continue to give you the updates as we go along, right? So we are, again, encouraged by the union budget and the kind of focus that the government is trying to bring in the sector.

Thank you. Those are my questions. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Amit Anwani from PL Capital. Please go ahead.

Hi, sir. Thanks. I hope I have audible this time. There was a technical issue with the line earlier.

Yeah, we can hear you clearly now.

Yeah. So, first question on GenX, and congratulations for the order, first of all, after the challenges which we had faced. In GenX, one, I would like to understand what is the status with respect to the inspections now. So, earlier we had five to six clients, then there was a challenge, and this CCS order which you got. So, just wanted to understand in terms of client inspections, pipeline of clients, what's the number there. And broadly, in terms of number of orders, if you could at least highlight what one should expect in terms of inflow from Gen X next year for F27. And third portion you highlighted, data centers would like to understand what is the addressable market there, what exactly would like to supply, is it international, domestic, U.S.? That would be helpful, yeah.

The total approval and audit number has reached to 12, and the framework agreement which we were mentioning earlier are almost now 4. Out of that, 1 has already resulted into an order in this quarter, and we believe that this journey should continue now as it has just begun. The idea for next year is naturally from the planning point of view. I am not talking about the numbers which you can look at from the guidance point of view, but our target is at least we should be hitting a number on order booking of not less than 500 crores. That's the target which we have kept for ourselves from the order booking side, and the idea is also to capture as much of possibilities or the opportunities which are there in the first maximum. So that's the picture which we are right now having from Mangalore facility point of view.

On data center, from Kala?

Yeah, maybe I can take that up. So on the data centers, you must have seen all the buzz around data centers and its growth due to the artificial intelligence and some of the other applications developing very fast. We are specifically focusing on currently the international market, but soon even India can be the place for us to look at it, right? So we are assessing that market space. Depending on how much of the scope we can take up, the total available market can vary. Our current focus is on the cooling systems that we have, And this is basically to provide the cooling system-related infrastructure, the piping and the frames that go into the data center. It's a precision fabrication type of work, which we are quite capable of doing in our Gen X, state-of-the-art manufacturing facility data center, where Praj can develop expertise. Right, so early days, we are developing this, but since it's a sector that is growing fast, we are keeping ourselves engaged there.

Right, so second question on the Bioenergy International. Earlier, you highlighted that Brazil was one of the markets where you won orders, and you also highlighted the positive policy development with other markets. I just wanted to understand in the first nine months how many order we won in international. And second, is there an immediate international market probably in the next six to 12 months where we might be targeting more order wins there?

Yeah, so you must have seen in our investor's presentation that when it is an order booking for the current quarter, It's about domestic of 68% and 32% of international. You know, that's the split that we have.

Right. So in terms of new markets, anything which is kind of converting and probably converting to orders for you in next 12 months, the markets you have highlighted?

Some of these orders will start converting into revenues. I don't have the exact numbers right now, but yes, these will start converting into revenues.

But Amit, the markets which you just mentioned, some of them are from the Latin American side. And we are already getting some orders from that market because of the increased lending mandates which are getting announced. So that one is happening. There is no, I would not like to say that there is any virgin market which is not being served by Prash, which is anyway getting served, and we are only increasing our presence over there. Sorry to interrupt.

Mr. Amin, may we request you to turn to the question queue for a follow-up question? It's from the line of Sandeep Sabarwal from AskSandeepSabarwal.com. Please go ahead.

I just wanted to know more about the target of 10,000 flows of revenue, which was announced by the chairman. Because when that was announced, it was already known that there is going to be a papering off of the 1G ethanol demand in India. And so, in that context, that target was announced, and since then, the revenue growth has actually flattened, and profitability has also come under pressure.

Sandeep, unfortunately, we are not able to hear you. Can you be a little louder? And your line seems to be having a disturbance. One second.

Can you hear me now? Yeah, I just wanted to know more about the 2030 target set by Mr. Chaudhary, because when that target was set, it was already known that there's going to be a store-down in the 1G side. And even after that, that target was announced. So how do you see your company moving towards that?

Okay, maybe I can take that and Sachin can add to me. So first of all, Sandeepji, thanks for the question. If you see, our fundamentals are still the same, and there are strong vectors that will enable us to go towards our ambition to be a 10,000 crore company, right? Now, whether we will reach there by 2030 or 3031 will depend on a few mandates that were assumed at that point in time. For example, the 1G projections that you talked about, we probably expected that beyond the successful EBP20 program, which is 20% lending in petrol, there is a capacity to go even higher than that. There is flexi-fuel engines that can come in, or even the vehicles can take up to 100% of ethanol. So there are other pathways for ethanol that are being worked upon. They will have different inflection points in the future, and we believe that, you know, that ambition that we as a company have to reach 10,000 crores And the vision that is set by our chairman, we are working on that still.

Is that all? Because you just talked of 1G as an opportunity to get there, so I don't think you're going to get there on 1G itself.

So, Sandeep, I'll give you a little bit more color. I would say as the bio-IBA sort of blending gets accepted by both the government and the industry, That opens up a new market in the biofuels. SAS is another area where Praj is one of the first companies ready with the technology. We also talked about favorability that is seen in the union budget for compressed biogas, which is a sector that we are a strong player in. I'm also, you know, encouraged by the tariffs, you know, and the lowering of tariffs in the key markets for international business that Praj has. So all of these put together are very encouraging for us, right? And what happens over the next four years is going to be something which will be interesting. What I would like you to take away from this discussion is that Praj is ready with the technology as a technology company, and we are ready to engage in these new markets and new opportunities. There are dependencies on policies and some of these triggers that I talked to you about, and I'm sure that some of them, if not all of them, some of them will fructify, And we will be able to march towards the target that was set for 2030.

Pardon me for the skepticism of investors, but, you know, over the years, we see a series of press releases from Praj relating to their technology and how the technologies are first-in-class or unique, etc. But I'll just give you a couple of examples, like Rampo Chini announced a bioplastic venture of 2,000 crores, but then the company which is doing that technology partners are different. You said that your technology on SAF is one of the best, but recently I think this 2Alt Energy announced SAF plant where the technology is coming from some other company, it's a big investment. So all that is the thing which concerns us, because we see these announcements of Praj being at the forefront of technology, but then we don't see the orders getting translated.

No, fair point, Sandeep. So we cannot comment on the decisions taken by some of the other industry players. For Balrampur Chini, when that project got announced, maybe we had not completed our technology offering, right? But now we have, and we can certainly be ready for any new opportunity that comes up in the market. And the same thing is true for the SAF technology that we have. So your concern is well noted. I understand the skepticism that you mentioned. And, but, yeah, I think in a market there are players and there is competition and there are opportunities that will come up. And what I can only assure you is that we are ready with our technology and our intent to engage in these markets.

So wish to ask questions. May press try and one at this time. The next question is from the line of Amitah Geisha from HG Hava. Please go ahead.

Yeah, thank you for the opportunity. Sir, my question is with respect to the margins, like, can we return to the 24 levels of 10-11% and what structural steps are being taken to restore the margin?

Sorry, your, unfortunately, question was not clear because his voice is not clear. Can it be a little louder and maybe use your handset?

The margins, am I, am I audible isn't clear now?

You're audible, but your voice is getting packed in between.

The question is connected to the margins, sir. Do you think we can return to 24-level margins of 10-11% and what structural steps are being taken to restore margins?

Yeah. So, two-three things which I mentioned earlier also, that majorly the margins are getting impacted because of the fixed cost absorption which is supposedly to happen in our new facility. And as I mentioned earlier, that order booking has already started happening in that facility, and we believe that we will be in a position to arrest whatever is the fixed cost absorption, which is not happening. Going forward, we will see that happening, which will help us in improving the margin. That's one element. Secondly, naturally, the mix of sales which you are talking about, the composition of the segments or the sectors which Ashish has just given a color to, That is what is going to help us in going back to the normal margin scenario. The volume, the fixed cost absorption, decomposition of sales, and the geography. These are the three or four segments at a high level, I can tell you, is what is going to help us in improving our margin.

The last question, sir, are you planning additional manufacturing facilities beyond the current five which we have?

Frankly, no, because from the engineering business point of view, actually we had invested for future, not only for the current requirement. Of course, the current requirement is also got a little bit postponed, and the additional investment which we had taken into account considering the future growth has already been done. So we are not looking for building up any facility per se, but to meet to these new requirements or new segments which we just referred to, if there is any requirement on the plant and machinery side, that is what we will get added into. But otherwise, from the factory or land and all that, I don't think that we will be investing any more.

Thank you, the Nazirist.

Question is from the line of Dhaval Shah from Infinite. Please go ahead.

Thanks, Mike. Thanks for taking my question. Depending on the skepticism part, we've done a lot of announcements, like having a JV with Indian Oil Corporation in 2022. And then very recently, we announced a JV with BPCL. But then after three, four years, there is no follow-up, no any announcement that what we've done with the JV with IOC. My question is, we do make JVs with IOC, then what is the progress on that? We were supposed to start any initiative in that JV, but since it's been around three, four years, there is no progress.

Yeah. Let me answer this question on both the JVs. IOCL JV, if you recall, was mean for starting with the SAF project, and it was mean for overall biofail scenario. So, as the decision has not yet been reached to what is to be taken first from the which biofail project has to be taken first, the decision is not yet reached to finality on the IOSLJV, and that's the reason why we have not made any specific announcement on the IOSLJV. If you look at BPCL-JV, BPCL-JV is mainly to start with on the CBG side, and the idea was to start this JV only when we are finalizing at least five projects to be taken up under this JV. So right now we are actually shortlisting the projects for this JV, where the developer is also supposedly to be part of it, so the discussions and negotiations are going on. Once that gets finalized, we will definitely announce the further steps under this JV for BBCL. But that is what, I mean, it is the work which is going on right now to give some kind of a finality to this JV.

Yeah, we do hope that it reaches some conclusion and doesn't lay languishing like the IOC JV, because we announce and, you know, in such announcements, the chairman and the IOC chairman comes for a picture, And then there is no progress. It's very amusing when such dignitaries are involved and then there is no progress.

But you'll have to also understand that there are multiple other things also which plays a role into it. And it is not a simple order which someone has to place on it. It's a different business model also which we have to get it evaluated properly and who's going to play what role and all. As I said, those detailing is right now going on.

I guess four years is a good enough time to finalize all those things. And one more thing on the CBG part, Reliance had announced around 65,000 crores investment in Andhra Pradesh. So are we seeing any traction on that side, whether we are working with Reliance? Because we previously did one project with Reliance for CBG. So Reliance has announced such a big capex in Andhra Pradesh. Is there any movement on that side?

So, Dhaval, I will take that question. They have announced a program which is in public domain. It's called Prakasam, and the amount you just now mentioned. So, their intent is very clear, but they have not yet, you know, engaged any vendors for going ahead with that program. We are, of course, one of their technology suppliers, and we are doing several of their plants as well. As and when that opportunity opens up, I'm sure we will also have a part to play in that.

Good luck.

The next question is from the line of Aditya Mungia from Cotec Securities. Please go ahead.

Thank you for the opportunity. I just wanted to kind of engage better from you as in from the perspective of the staff opportunity that got signed between Truvalt and Aniwell. Could you give us a sense as to were we at par in terms of giving the offering or are there parts of it that we still don't have inside and thus we couldn't get inside this opportunity?

Aditya, I don't know what exactly is that arrangement between these two organizations that you just alluded to. We certainly were not involved in that discussion, so I will not have any information on that. Truart is one of our customers. We have been working with them on other technologies as well. And if they have done this decision in the wisdom that they have, then it will be very difficult for us to comment on that.

I'm just trying to get a sense as in what the nature of the contract was. Was that something that Praj could have also kind of delivered on? I'm just trying to get that aspect. I'm not trying to get in that aspect of it.

Well, yes, absolutely. If Praj were to be given an opportunity, certainly yes. But I think, first of all, is there a contract? In fact, is the question that we may have to find out, or is it just an announcement? So, therefore, I am saying that it is not for me to comment on these, especially for the two organizations that I am not a part of. I am a part of Praj, and if your question is, had that opportunity been given to Praj, yes, certainly would I have been able to do.

If I may add, we will see many opportunities coming up in the market, Because if you looked at the NITRIAYA report also, it's talking about in the energy space, biofail is supposedly to play a very large role. So we will see many opportunities coming up in the space of bioenergy, and we will also encounter many inquiries in our way. Now we will have to decide what makes sense from cash shareholder's point of view and the commercial sense whether we should go for specific order or not. So there will be some kind of a, what I can say, commercial angle to it also. Not necessarily the one which you referred is having that, but going forward, you might come across multiple inquiries, multiple MOUs, multiple so-called orders. Not necessarily Praj will be addressing to all of them. We will address only those where it makes sense commercially for Praj and Praj shareholders.

Just a little question. This one has in the same document, Niti Ayo, somehow doesn't find as much mention of an EVP program. Correct me, I'm wrong when I'm saying what I'm saying. Does that make you less hopeful of EBP targets being increased from their own, and maybe more focus happening on other aspects like SAP and CBG?

No, frankly speaking, it is not giving us some kind of a negative picture. Rather, it is talking about expanding the entire basket, and it is not only restricting to EBP per se. So it is talking about something more than that. I think that is far more encouraging instead of only changing our hopes and everything to only ethanol blending. So it is talking about CPEF, it is talking about CBG, it is also giving some kind of a sense of how the flexi-fuel can happen, how the additional blending can happen. No timelines are given, that is fine, but at least the roadmap is very clear that this is how they would like to march on this biofuel space.

Maybe a last question. I recall that the tariff issue had limited the customer interest in the ETC or the GenX fatality. When you say 1204 framework agreements, is there any revival that you are seeing from U.S.-based customers for the GenX fatality post-tariff changes that have happened?

Yes, the first order which we are talking about is from U.S. A pipeline from U.S. is also very strong. So we definitely expect and hope that order revival should start happening from U.S. side in any case.

How many such orders should we be having for us to be having a short break-even?

At one point, if you are asking for Jenex, the terminal should be somewhere around. Of course, it completely depends on the nature and the margins. But ballpark number, you can consider somewhere between 400-500 crores.

The next question is from the line of Binesh Jain, an individual investor. Please go ahead.

Thanks for the opportunity, sir. I have just heard about one news item. They said Emetics India. So, they have started biodiesel deliveries to oil marketing companies. This appeared on 3rd February 26th. So, I wanted to understand how their biodiesel deliveries are different from what we are working with isobutin on and out. So, Dinesh, biodiesel is a different product compared to what we talked about with the reference of bio-IBA. Biodiesel is a product that is made from the biosources, which is similar to a market there, and people are working in those technologies. What can happen is our customers, who are our ethanol customers, especially the grain or the corn ethanol customers, they make what is called a distillers corn oil, and one of the feedstock that goes into, that means you can get a nutritional petrol, we can blend, a bioisoglutanol can be blended into the conventional diesel. And that is a totally different way of introducing biofuels to give you a difference between the two. Am I? Yeah, yeah. Thanks for the clarification. Thank you.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, I now hand the conference over to the management for closing comments.

So thank you, everyone, for your time today.

In case you have any more questions, feel free to write us at info at praj.net. Thanks again for your time, and we look forward to you on the next analyst call. Thank you. Have a good day. Thank you.

Thank you. On behalf of Raj Industries Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.