Published on August 4, 2014

In last two months of 2014, owing to deficit rainfall the sales of fertiliser were noted to have been a slow start in the current Kharif season, however, in compare to last two years in the month of July, 2014 the sales of fertiliser had picked up, according to the industry experts. Moreover, for urea manufacturing plants the Fertilzers Ministry have solicited the Petroleum Ministry to boost the supply of gas and have also asked to look into the opportunity of gas pipeline from Phulpur to Haldia, as it can lead to a reinforcement of five closed plants.

In order to discuss some of the issues the Fertilzer Minister Ananth Kumar on 2nd August, 2014, had a meeting with Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, which included issues such as revival of urea plants, supply of gas to the urea plants and for supply of gas to three urea companies Manglore Chemicals and Fertilisers Ltd, SPIC and Madras Fertilisers Ltd through gas pipeline, as these three companies are currently using Naphtha as a feedstock.  Furthermore according to the sources, by using 31.5 million metric standard cubic metres per day the fertiliser plants are noted as the largest consumers of domestically produced gas and in India the natural gas accounts for as much as 65-70% of urea production costs.

According to the researched report, due to carry over stocks from the previous year the import of urea of the country in the year 2013-14 had plunged down by 12% to 7.08 million tons and in the entire fiscal year the country had imported 8.04 million tons of urea. However to enhance the domestic production of soil nutrient the government is working on to stimulate the closed domestic fertiliser units and the Fertiliser Minister will aim to make the country autonomous on widely used soil nutrient.