Early September, Duc Giang Chemicals Group (HOSE: DGC) announced a new milestone for its Nghi Son complex in Thanh Hoa: completing construction and starting commercial production in Q4 2026.CafeF It's the fourth revision since the start of the year, landing in the same year the company set its lowest profit target since 2020. The real issue isn't whether this date holds. It's that even if it does, it won't decide Duc Giang's results for this year.
Phase 1, the part about to go live, carries a budget of roughly VND 2.4 trillion within the broader three-phase "VND 12 trillion mega-project," with a designed capacity of 151,000 tonnes of chemicals a year, producing mainly caustic soda, HCl, Javel water and Chloramine B.Nguoi Quan Sat That's the caustic soda-chlorine segment, distinct from the phosphorus chemicals business that has carried Duc Giang's profits for years.
Four missed deadlines in nine months
The original investment certificate set a completion window between Q4 2024 and Q1 2026. Late December 2025, the company launched a "100-day sprint" campaign, building through the Tet holiday, targeting trial runs from Q2 2026.CafeF That target didn't hold: March pushed it to Q2, April slipped it to early-Q3 trial runs, and June moved it again to partial trial runs in late Q3 or early Q4. In mid-July, the board formally amended the investment certificate, extending construction into Q4 2026.Tin Nhanh Chung Khoan
The stated causes are external: China tightened export controls on specialized equipment, and new regulations forced many chemicals to move by sea instead of road, slowing material staging.VietnamFinance These are real bottlenecks, outside the developer's control. But four consecutive slips are also why a "Q4 2026 start-up" announcement deserves more caution than a simple piece of good news.
"Start-up" isn't "revenue" yet
The easiest part of this story to misread is the word "start-up." Trial runs, first commercial output, and formal commercial operation are three separate states, months apart. In its September 4 update, Vietcap said the project is unlikely to begin trial runs before Q4 2026, and assumes formal commercial operation only starts in Q1 2027, with utilization projected at around 65% in 2027.CafeF DSC Securities is even more cautious: the plant runs at only around 30% capacity in 2027, translating to roughly VND 420 billion in revenue.Nguoi Quan Sat Set against the group's VND 10.1 trillion consolidated revenue plan for this year, that VND 420 billion figure is roughly 4%. It's a snapshot of just how small Nghi Son's contribution will be even in its first operating year.
In other words, the Q4 2026 milestone, if it holds, is good news for construction. It barely touches 2026's actual results.
What's eating into profit
In the first half of 2026, Duc Giang posted revenue of over VND 4.541 trillion, down 21.4% year-on-year, and after-tax profit of nearly VND 871 billion, down about 49%.CafeF That drop isn't about selling prices: Vietcap assumes average industrial phosphorus chemical prices this year stay around VND 114 million a tonne, enough to keep revenue in that segment roughly in line with last year.
The real pressure is on the input side. Per DSC, the two main apatite mining sites, Khai Truong 25 and 19B, which together supply about 80% of the company's ore needs, have been suspended. Having lost self-sufficiency, Duc Giang now has to import all its ore, at around $152-155 a tonne. At the same time, sulfur prices per Sunsirs data have risen about 146% since the start of the year, to roughly CNY 9,002 a tonne, equivalent to $1,330.Nguoi Quan Sat
The consequences show up clearly in full-year forecasts. Vietcap estimates 2026 cost of goods sold up 13%, pulling gross margin down from 31.5% to 17.5%, with net profit attributable to parent shareholders at around VND 1.6 trillion, down 47% from VND 3.025 trillion in 2025.CafeF Vietcap also built a scenario in which the company fails to recover its own mining sources through 2026-2028: if that holds, profit in 2027 and 2028 would be only around VND 1.646 trillion and VND 1.759 trillion, still far below the over-VND 3-trillion mark from 2025, even with Nghi Son up and running.
The legal foundation under every number
The ore disruption isn't an ordinary technical glitch. On March 17, 2026, the Ministry of Public Security's Criminal Police Agency indicted and detained Dao Huu Huyen, then chairman of Duc Giang Chemicals Group, along with 13 other people, on charges related to accounting violations, illegal resource extraction and environmental pollution.Tuoi Tre His son, Dao Huu Duy Anh, then vice chairman, was indicted in the same case.VnExpress The company subsequently proposed to shareholders that both be removed from their posts,Dan Tri and Dao Huu Kha, Huyen's brother, was elected chairman effective May 8, 2026.CafeF
On July 22, the company disclosed further indictments against its CEO, a deputy CEO and a board member, all three barred from leaving their place of residence. Vietcap flagged this as raising continuity risk in management, with knock-on effects for resolving the mining, environmental and project-timeline issues. On the exchange, DGC shares remain under a trading restriction imposed May 20, 2026, for filing audited 2025 financial statements more than 45 days late. On September 3, HoSE said the warning status stays in place, since auditor UHY issued a qualified opinion in the H1 2026 review, citing the lack of a final conclusion from the competent authority as insufficient grounds to adjust the relevant figures.Nguoi Quan Sat
A large dividend in the middle of the storm
Amid all this, Duc Giang is still paying out a large dividend. September 15 is the record date for a total cash dividend of 80%, equivalent to VND 8,000 per share, combining the remaining VND 5,000 from 2025 and a VND 3,000 first advance for 2026. The ex-dividend date is September 14, with payment expected September 25.Mekong ASEAN With nearly 380 million shares outstanding, the total payout is roughly VND 3.04 trillion, close to double the VND 1.6 trillion full-year 2026 net profit plan.
The market reacted quickly. On September 3, the day the payment schedule was announced, DGC rose 4.4% to VND 44,900, and closed on September 10 at VND 47,000, up 9.3% from VND 43,000 on August 28.
This six-session rally has more than one explanation. The VND 8,000 dividend is the clearest one, since the sharpest move landed on the announcement day itself, but the broader market also rose over the same stretch, and the confirmed Nghi Son timeline added to expectations. The evidence at hand isn't enough to cleanly separate each factor's contribution. One technical point worth remembering: on the ex-dividend date, the reference price gets cut by exactly VND 8,000, about 17% of the September 10 price. The gain tied to dividend expectations isn't a gain that survives past the ex-dividend date.
Three signals that will decide this story
Nghi Son's long-term growth logic still holds: Vietnam only produces about half its own caustic soda demand domestically, and Duc Giang's Lao Cai plant has run out of room to expand. But for fiscal year 2026, three signals matter more than any progress announcement.
The nearest-term signal is the technical acceptance record for trial runs at Nghi Son in Q4. A "start-up" announcement without a technical acceptance record is still just a plan, same as the previous four. The heavier signal is whether Khai Truong 25 and 19B can reopen: until investigators reach a conclusion and the mines resume, gross margin stays anchored at low levels, and a 50,000-tonne-a-year caustic soda plant isn't enough to offset that shortfall. The remaining signal is the price level for imported apatite ore and sulfur in the second half, with DSC forecasting ore around $155-157 a tonne and sulfur at $1,350-1,400 a tonne. Every shift in those two price lines flows straight into the cost of goods sold in the phosphorus segment, which still carries most of the group's revenue.
Duc Giang's 2026 results, in other words, will be decided far more by the investigation's outcome and imported ore prices than by the Q4 milestone that just got confirmed.