Tata Chemicals net at Rs 949 cr

Net sales of the company rose by 2.12% to Rs 4075.6 crore, as
against Rs 3990.9 crore in the previous year period.

"Our soda ash business has performed very well despite floods at Mithapur and operational difficulties at Magadi. Our urea operations performed strongly with production for the year under review at a record high. Erratic availability of phosphoric acid however impacted our phosphatic fertiliser operations," said Homi Khusrokhan, managing director, Tata Chemicals.

Tata Chemicals, the second largest manufacturer of soda ash and the third
largest producer of sodium bicarbonate in the world, sold over 680,000
tonnes of soda ash during the financial year.

"Higher input costs, especially those of coal, coke and limestone impacted production. Price increases of soda ash on the back of strong demand, however helped mitigate these threats," said a press release.

Revenues for FY08 from the fertiliser business stood at Rs 2,506 crore. The plants at Babrala recorded its highest urea production this year, despite natural gas supply interruptions. Work on debottlenecking of the urea plant is progressing on schedule and is expected to be completed by December 2008.

Tata Chemicals has started the integration process of the acquired soda ash business of General Chemical Industrial Products Inc. (GCIP). Tata
Chemicals bought the US chemical company a few months ago for $ 1,005 million, from Harbinger Capital Partners.

Commenting on the bio-fuel business, Tata Chemicals said civil construction at site for the ethanol project at Nanded has commenced and would commission the plant by the end of this year.

The company has also acquired land in Madurai for setting up a bio diesel pilot plant.

The Board of Directors has recommend dividend of Rs 9 per equity share.