PERFORMANCE OF
FERTILIZER PLANTS IN PUBLIC SECTOR
Number of fertilizer
plants operating in the public, private and co-operative sector,
their annual installed capacity and capacity utilisation (in percentage)
during April – Oct. 2002 is given as under:-
|
Sector
|
Number of Plants
|
Annual Installed
capacity ( lakh tonnes)
|
%age capacity
utilisation
|
| |
|
Nitorgen
|
Phosphate
|
Nitrogen
|
Phosphate
|
|
Public
|
23
|
35.95
|
4.75
|
78.4
|
74.1
|
|
Co-operative
|
7
|
27.72
|
7.25
|
101.2
|
129.9
|
|
Private
|
29
|
57.19
|
41.60
|
86.5
|
64.4
|
|
Total
|
59
|
120.86
|
53.60
|
87.5
|
74.1
|
Major reasons for
poor performance of public sector plants during April-Oct. 2002
are:-
- Shortage of natural gas in all
the gas based fertilizer plants.
- Cochin –1unit of Fertilizers and
Chemicals Travancore Limited , Trombay – V unit of Rashtriya
Chemicals & Fertilizers Limited, Neyveli unit of Neyveli
Lignite Corporation Limited and Sindri unit of Fertilizer Corporation
of India remained under shutdown during the entire period.
- Equipment breakdown/problems in
Bhatinda & Panipat units of National Fertilizer Limited.
- Equipment problems along with
ongoing Revamp activities in Namrup – III unit of Brahmaputra
Valley Fertilizer Corporation Limited (BVFCL).
- Low production of NPK complexes
due to high inventory in all the complex manufacturing plants.
Fertilizer Industry
is currently facing problems for matching the production with
installed capacity mainly on two accounts. First, limitation in
availability of natural gas specially for gas based urea plants
such as RCF – Thal and KRIBHCO – Hazira plants and second, frequent
shut down/break down because of critical equipments related problems
in old – vintage plants. Department of Fertilizer is pursuing
with Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas to make available adequate
and qualitative gas to fertilizer plants. Besides, PSUs have been
advised to examine the possibility of sourcing alternate source
of LNG as feedstock and to take steps for long term tie-up with
prospective suppliers to overcome constraints in domestic availability
of gas. Many urea units including those of PSUs have been installed
dual fuel facility of naphtha for supplementing alternate feed.
Capital additions are being recognized under Retention Price-cum-Subsidy
Scheme (RPS) so as to encourage these units to undertake investment
for improving their efficiency by expansion/retrofitting/revamping
of existing plants to overcome equipment breakdown etc.
Besides, the following
steps are being taken to improve the operational performance of
PSUs.
- The revamp of the Namrup units
of Hindustan Fertilizers Corporation Limited (HFC) at a revised
cost of Rs. 509.40 crore, is under implementation and likely
to be completed in May, 2003. The Namrup units have been separated
into a new entity under the name of "Brahmaputra Valley
Fertilizer Corporation Limited" w.e.f. 1.4.2002.
- Government of India have granted
the financial reliefs to the Fertilizers and Chemicals Travancore
Ltd. (FACT) and Madras Fertilizers Ltd. (MFL) in March, 2002
and July, 2002 respectively to improve their financial viability.
- Plant assistance is being extended
to those PSUs, who are not able to generate internal resources
for undertaking capital investments, technology upgradation,
renewals and replacement etc.
- Various cost cutting measures
have been taken by PSUs to bring about fiscal discipline to
generate internal resources for better and efficient operations
of their plants.
- Besides, manpower rationalisation
including roll back of retirement age from 60 years to 58 years
has been undertaken by the PSUs.
This information
was given by the Minister of State for Chemicals & fertilizers,
Shri Tapan Sikdar, in a written reply to a question in the Rajya
Sabha today.
