After reporting a strong set of second quarter earnings, Kolkata-headquartered Philips Carbon Black on Wednesday said it expects a volume growth of 8-10 percent over the next two quarters.

Phillips Carbon Black's revenues for the quarter were up 42 percent at Rs 850 crore against Rs 600 crore posted for the same quarter last fiscal. The year on year EBITDA was up 54 percent at Rs 145 crore against Rs 94 crore.

In an interview to CNBC-TV18, Sanjiv Goenka, chairman, said Phillips Carbon Black is planning to commission a 50,000 tonne carbon black plant in Mundra next month, which will add 4000 tonnes of carbon black sales from December onwards.

Goenka said Mundra plant would help Phillips Carbon Black to increase revenue and bottomline by reasonable amount, "All their new plants were all environmentally compliantly with virtually no emissions."

With regards to capacity utilisation, he said as of now 98 percent of the capacity is utilised, "Since a lot of tyre capacity is coming up, the demand is expected to be robust going forward for next few quarters."

In South India, Phillips Carbon Black is planning to expand capacity as the tyre industry is expanding there in a big way. Ceat, Apollo, JK Tyre etc. are expanding in that region, he said adding that, "The company is contemplating expansion between Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana."

When asked if there was any impact on carbon black feed stock due to depreciating rupee and rising crude prices,

Goenka said price of carbon black feedstock is absorbed by the tyre industry, whether it increases or decreases, "Phillips Carbon Black is debt averse company. So internal accruals go towards expansions or debt reductions."

First Published:Oct 31, 2018 5:07 PM IST