Tata Chemical’s Q3 PAT declines by 22%

“This (decline in PAT) is basically due to high input costs and the the fact that our European operations were hit by extreme winter,” Tata Chemicals Managing Director R Mukundan told reporters here.

He said that the company’s Q3 margins have shrunk by around 19 per cent (sequentially) and by 3 per cent year-on-year.

High input cost pressure is likely to continue,he said.

Asked if the company was planning to jack-up its prices,Mukundan said that “a reset (in prices) might happen.”

The company has clocked an over 9 per cent growth in net sales in Q3 FY 11,which includes other operating income,at Rs 2,890.85-crore from Rs 2,646.18-crore in the year-ago period.

For the nine-months period ending December 31,the company’s PAT rose by 6 per cent to Rs 508 crore compared to same period last fiscal and its net sales was up by 16 per cent at Rs 8,402 crore.

Executive Director and CFO P K Ghose said the company is planning to expand its soda ash capacity to three million tonne in next three years from the present 2.5 million tonnes at a cost of about Rs 10 crore. It is also planning to expand its domestic salt capacity.

“The company is planning an additional 2 lakh tonne de-bottlenecking capacity at an investment of Rs 180 crore by March 2012,” he said.

Tata Chemicals is also planning to increase its single super phosphate (SSP) capacity at Haldia by 50,000 tonne at a cost of Rs 11 crore by FY 12.

The company is investing USD 15 million in Mozambique bio-fuel operations and setting up one million tonne di-ammonia phosphate unit in Morocco,he added.