Steamhouse India Limited

Sector: Industrial Gases (Community Steam & Nitrogen Generation and Pipeline Distribution) | Sub-sector: Utility Infrastructure Services to Industrial Clusters

1. Overview

Steamhouse India Limited is an Indian industrial-gas utility company that specializes in the generation and centralized distribution of industrial gases — principally steam and nitrogen — through its own pipeline network to industrial customers clustered in Gujarat. The Company and its Promoter, Vishal Sanwarprasad Budhia, are the pioneers of the community boiler system in India, first introduced in 2014 (Source: F&S Report). Originally incorporated in June 2015 as Ankleshwar Eco Energy Limited, the Company was renamed Steamhouse India Limited in September 2021.

The Company's core proposition is infrastructure-substitution: instead of each industrial customer investing in and operating its own captive boiler, Steam house operates a central "community" boiler and pipes the steam to multiple industrial customers over dedicated pipelines. This model materially reduces per-customer capital outlay, footprint, fuel handling and emissions monitoring, and allows the Company to capture the fixed-cost leverage of centralized generation. On the demand side, India's process steam demand was ~203,472 TPH in Fiscal 2026 and is projected to grow at a 9.4% CAGR through Fiscal 2031 (Source: F&S Report), providing a large secular tailwind.

As of July 31, 2026, the Company owned and operated seven community steam boilers in Gujarat (six owned, one leased) with aggregate installed steam capacity of 345 TPH (~2,185,920 TPA at 330 operating days and 80% efficiency), and one nitrogen generation facility at Ankleshwar (350 NM³/hour, commissioned February 1, 2025). Its 60,151-metre pipeline network connects these facilities to customer premises across pharmaceuticals, chemicals, textiles, agrochemicals, tyres, dyes & pigments, polymers and paints. The customer base grew from 125 in Fiscal 2024 to 202 in Fiscal 2026, with repeat customers contributing 90.72% of revenue in Fiscal 2026.

Steamhouse is one of only two India-listed pure-play industrial gas comparables identified for peer benchmarking, alongside Linde India Limited and Ellenbarrie Industrial Gases Limited. The Company reported Revenue from Operations of ₹491.51 Cr and PAT of ₹38.64 Cr in Fiscal 2026, on Total Assets of ₹679.45 Cr and Total Equity of ₹172.77 Cr. It is uniquely positioned as the only Indian company supplying nitrogen through a distributed pipeline network (versus the industry practice of cryogenic tanks and on-site generation) — a differentiator that provides a template for scaling other industrial-gas offerings.

2. Business Model and Revenue Streams

Revenue Composition by Offering

Steamhouse operates four distinct revenue streams, with the steam business (own generation + purchase-and-distribute) contributing ~70% of Fiscal 2026 revenue, coal trading adding a meaningful third leg (~27%), and nitrogen distribution as a nascent but strategic fourth vertical. (₹ Cr).

Two structural shifts in the revenue mix warrant attention:

The coal trading vertical scaled from a negligible ₹0.02 Cr in FY24 to ₹132.33 Cr in FY26 — a step-change driven by the termination of the leave-and-license arrangement with Group Company Sanjoo Dyeing and its replacement with an O&M agreement effective April 1, 2025, under which Steamhouse now supplies coal to Sanjoo Dyeing at prevailing market prices for a three-year term.

Purchase-and-distribute steam grew from zero to ₹87 Cr in two years, reflecting the Company's asset-light expansion strategy of contracting with third-party steam generators (e.g., Kilburn Chemicals, a titanium dioxide manufacturer) and reselling through its pipeline network.

Revenue by Customer Sector

The Company services eight distinct industrial verticals, with chemicals, pharmaceuticals and textiles collectively contributing ~67% of FY26 revenue (₹ Cr):

A notable rebalancing: Pharmaceuticals fell from 39.82% of revenue in FY24 to 18.41% in FY26, while Textiles rose from 7.40% to 22.18% over the same period — reducing single-sector concentration. Marquee customers include Aether Industries Limited, Anupam Rasayan India Limited, Globe Enviro Care Limited, Gujarat Polysol Chemicals Limited, K. Patel Chemo Pharma Private Limited, Mahavir Synthesis Private Limited and Subhasri Pigments Limited.

Pricing and Contract Model

Steam and nitrogen are sold under long-term supply contracts with industrial customers (agreements with the top ten customers span two to seven years). Revenue is invoiced against metered consumption tracked via flow meters and SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) systems, with drone-assisted pipeline monitoring for leakage detection. Coal trading is executed on an invoice-only basis at prevailing market prices, primarily to Group Companies (Sanjoo Dyeing & Sanjoo Prints).

Customer Concentration Metrics

• Top 10 customers: 47.87% of FY26 revenue (up marginally from 53.95% in FY25 and 59.79% in FY24 — reflecting a widening base)
• Largest customer: 18.36% of FY26 revenue
• Repeat customer contribution: 90.72% (FY26), 88.01% (FY25), 91.49% (FY24) — indicative of high stickiness
• Number of repeat customers: 154 in FY26 (up from 74 in FY24)

Key Industry-Specific Operating Metrics

Supplier & Fuel-Cost Dependency

Coal is the primary fuel input and its cost accounted for 77.29%, 76.19% and 92.01% of total purchases in Fiscal 2026, 2025 and 2024 respectively. The top 10 suppliers contributed 81.71% of purchases in FY26 (up from 75.35% in FY25), with the single largest supplier at 21.08% in FY26 — indicating meaningful supplier concentration alongside customer concentration.

3. Products and Service Portfolio

3.1 Generation and Distribution of Steam (Primary Business Line)

The Company operates seven community steam boilers across Gujarat, with total installed capacity of 345 TPH. All coal-based boilers use AFBC (Atmospheric Fluidized Bed Combustion) design, which enables use of limestone/dolomite for flue-gas desulfurization (reducing SOx emissions) and provides fuel flexibility across coal, lignite, biomass, wood chips and sawdust.

Operational Facility Snapshot (as at July 31, 2026):

3.2 Facility-Level Capacity Utilization (Fiscal 2026)

Utilization is heterogeneous across the fleet, ranging from single-digits at newer/ramping facilities to 77%+ at the flagship WTE unit:

The Vapi WTE unit's 77.55% utilization is particularly notable — this is the Company's first non-fossil-fuel boiler (plastic waste, textile chindi, agro-waste and RDF), commissioned in 2025 and already operating at high capacity — validating the alternative-fuel business case.

3.3 Purchase and Distribution of Steam (Asset-Light Growth Vertical)

Under this model, Steamhouse contracts with third-party steam generators (typically industrial units where steam is a by-product) and monetizes its pipeline network by re-selling. Existing arrangements include:

• Kilburn Chemicals Limited (titanium dioxide manufacturer — coal-fired boiler by-product steam)
• Sanjoo Dyeing (Group Company — steam generated on assets Steamhouse operates under O&M)
• A chemical company in Dahej SEZ (5-year steam purchase agreement, signed April 2026)
• A chemical company in Haldia, West Bengal (5-year steam purchase agreement, signed April 2026 — first out-of-Gujarat foothold)
• Dahej SEZ and Haldia operations are expected to commence within 12 months of the RHP date.

3.4 Separation, Compression and Distribution of Nitrogen (Differentiated New Offering)

Steamhouse is the only Indian company supplying nitrogen through a distributed pipeline network (Source: F&S Report), instead of the industry standard of cryogenic tanks and on-site generation. The Ankleshwar nitrogen facility uses pressure swing adsorption (PSA) generators feeding thermally insulated pipelines. Revenue was ₹0.58 Cr in FY26 and ₹0.09 Cr in FY25 — nascent but strategically important as it establishes the template for scaling into hydrogen, instrument air and carbon dioxide through the same pipeline infrastructure.

3.5 Coal Trading (Bulk-Procurement By-product)

An invoice-only trading arm that monetizes the Company's bulk coal purchasing power, primarily selling excess coal to Group Company Sanjoo Dyeing on arms-length terms. FY26 revenue: ₹132.33 Cr (up from negligible in FY24).

3.6 Facilities Under Construction (Forward Pipeline)

Eight new community boiler facilities are under construction as at July 31, 2026, which will more than double installed capacity from 345 TPH to 705 TPH (2,185,920 TPA → 4,466,880 TPA):

4. Key Business Strengths

• Pioneer and market leader in India's community boiler system, first introduced by the Promoter in 2014, with entrenched geographic incumbency in Gujarat's industrial clusters that acts as a natural barrier to entry (Source: F&S Report).
• High barriers to entry via pipeline right-of-way network — the Company's 60,151-metre operational pipeline system occupies limited industrial-cluster corridors where new entrants cannot easily secure parallel rights-of-way, and existing customers have single-landing pipeline setups that are unlikely to be duplicated by competitors.
• Strategically located facilities near ports and industrial customer clusters — plants are located 45–50 km from ports (critical for imported coal logistics), and pipelines connect directly to customer premises (individual pipeline runs of 3,000–20,000 metres), materially reducing distribution losses and delivery costs.
• Marquee, sticky customer base across diversified industrial verticals — served 202 customers in FY26 across pharmaceuticals, chemicals, textiles, agrochemicals, tyres, dyes and polymers; 90.72% revenue from repeat customers in FY26; long-term contracts of two to seven years with the top ten customers.
• Only Indian company distributing nitrogen through pipelines — the Ankleshwar nitrogen facility (350 NM³/hr, February 2025) validates a distributed distribution model that displaces cryogenic tanks and on-site generation, and creates a scalable template for further industrial-gas verticals (hydrogen, CO₂, instrument air).
• Eco-friendly and sustainability-aligned operations — AFBC boiler design reduces SOx/NOx emissions and enables fuel-source flexibility (coal, biomass, plastic waste, textile chindi, RDF, agro-waste, waste gases); flue-gas desulfurization via limestone/dolomite; drone-assisted pipeline leak monitoring; Vapi WTE unit already runs entirely on non-fossil fuels.
• Experienced Promoter-led management team with deep sector expertise — Chairman & MD Vishal Sanwarprasad Budhia has 30+ years of management experience including 11 years specialized in community boiler industry, supported by a professional team of two Executive Directors and a Chartered Accountant CFO with banking-sector background.

5. Future Growth Strategy

• Aggressive capacity expansion — targeting doubling of installed capacity from 345 TPH to 705 TPH through eight new community boiler facilities under construction (Ankleshwar Phase 3, Panoli Phase 2 and Dahej GIDC Phase 2 to be Net Proceeds-funded), including the Company's first out-of-Gujarat facility at Haldia, West Bengal.
• Geographic diversification beyond Gujarat via participation in tenders for community industrial gas systems in upcoming industrial parks across India, reducing single-state concentration risk and enabling servicing of multi-location customer plants.
• Scaling the asset-light "purchase-and-distribute" model by contracting with third-party industrial units that have unused or by-product steam capacity (existing partnerships with Kilburn Chemicals, and chemical companies at Dahej SEZ and Haldia) — allows capacity scaling with materially lower capital outlay than greenfield boilers.
• Diversification into additional industrial gases — hydrogen, instrument air and carbon dioxide via the same distributed pipeline network model that has been validated for nitrogen at Ankleshwar; also modifying, operating and/or maintaining high-pressure boiler systems for industrial customers.
• Deep push into non-fossil-fuel steam generation — planned Nandesari Phase 2, Vapi Phase 3 and Pirana (Ahmedabad) facilities will run on plastic waste, textile chindi, RDF and agro-waste; positioning for eligibility under India's Carbon Credit Trading Scheme (Indian Carbon Market) once operational.
• Deleveraging the balance sheet — deployment of ₹180 Cr of Net Proceeds toward repayment/prepayment of borrowings will bring down Net Debt/Equity from 1.57x, reduce finance costs and free internal accruals for growth capex.
• Operational efficiency and cost-reduction initiatives — bulk coal purchasing, bed-material reuse, installation of variable frequency drives to optimize auxiliary power consumption, and turbine installation for co-generation of power.
• Solar-power integration to reduce grid dependency — 3.04 MW ground-mounted solar project via wheeling arrangement for the Ankleshwar plant (25-year lease at Village Jiyor, Narmada District), with additional solar projects planned across existing and upcoming facilities.