India's Ambuja Cements reports quarterly profit drop as fuel, freight costs rise

Ambuja Cements

29/10/2026 09:50

Oct 29 (Reuters) - Ambuja Cements, India's second-largest cement maker by capacity, reported a 34.7% drop in standalone adjusted quarterly profit on Thursday, pressured by higher fuel and freight costs.
        
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Ambuja houses the cement business of Adani group along with its listed subsidiaries ACC ACC.NS and Orient Cement ORCE.NS
Net profit before exceptional items and tax fell 34.7% year-over-year to 1.69 billion rupees ($17.7 million) for the quarter ended September
In the year-ago period, the firm had incurred a one-time exceptional charge of 2.23 billion rupees and a tax write-back of 11.80 billion rupees
Standalone total expenses jumped 11.7% due to higher fuel and freight costs, while revenue from operations grew 9.6% to 61.13 billion rupees
The firm said elevated fuel and logistics costs, driven by higher petcoke and coal prices, and increased diesel and packaging costs, continue to weigh on industry margins
EBITDA per ton dropped to 770 rupees from 1,061 rupees a year ago, while EBITDA margin contracted to 13.8% from 19.2%
"Following the recent 10-15 rupees price increase, the industry expects further pricing improvement over the next couple of months," CEO Vinod Bahety said
Consolidated sales volumes fell to 16.5 million metric tons from 16.6 million tons a year ago
The company, in the process of consolidating its cement operations, is targeting premiumisation over volume growth

($1 = 95.3025 Indian rupees)

 (Reporting by Vijay Malkar in Bengaluru; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips and Mrigank Dhaniwala)
 ((VijayDattaram.Malkar@thomsonreuters.com; +91 8097833031;))