India's Tata Chemicals posts drop in Q1 profit on lower prices, volumes

BENGALURU (Reuters) - India's Tata Chemicals Ltd posted a 9.7% fall in first-quarter profit on Monday, hurt by a fall in soda ash prices and lower volumes.

The chemical manufacturer's consolidated net profit fell to 5.32 billion rupees ($64.31 million) during the quarter ended June 30 from 5.89 billion rupees a year earlier.

"Soda ash prices got adversely impacted as many customers delayed their purchasing decisions due to new supplies expected from Inner Mongolia, China," said Managing Director and CEO R. Mukundan.

Supply of soda ash, used to prepare lithium carbonate - a key active material needed to manufacture electric vehicle batteries, increased after China eased Covid-related rules.

"The company had to adopt agile pricing to maximise volumes and ensure optimum utilisation of capacity," Mukundan added.

The Tata Group-owned company cut down its soda ash prices by 6% to 7% across all grades, effective from June 14. It announced another cut of about 5% in the prices recently, effective August 2.

The Mumbai-based company's total revenue from operations posted a smaller 5.6% jump to 42.18 billion rupees from a 34.2% jump last year.

Its basic chemistry segment, which contributes the most to its revenue, rose 10.7% compared with a 40.8% jump last year.

Besides soda ash, basic chemistry products include sodium bicarbonate, salt and marine chemicals, which are widely used in paints, detergents and insecticides.

Total expenses climbed 7.8%, including a 10% rise in power and fuel costs.

The company's shares ended 0.8% lower ahead of the results. The stock has gained 10.9% so far this year.

($1 = 82.7270 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Dimpal Gulwani; Editing by Sohini Goswami)