IFFCO pens spread plan

The Indian Farmer Fertiliser Co-operative Ltd (IFFCO) is all set to enhance capacities of four of its plants to bridge the gap between supply and demand of urea in the country.

IFFCO also plans to convert the Phulpur plants from naphtha to liquefied natural gas (LNG) to reduce the production cost of urea.

"We are enhancing the capacities of our plants in pursuant to the government policy on capacity enhancement. The capacities will be enhanced at four of our plants in the most economical manner," U S Awasthi, managing director, IFFCO said.

IFFCO plants ammonia-urea plants at Kalol, Phulpur (I and II), and Aonia (I and II) in Uttar Pradesh.

After the expansion, the capacity of the urea plant, Phulpur-I, will increase from 1,670 metric tonne per day to over 2,080 metric tonne per day. The capacities of each of the other plants will be enhanced from 2,620 metric tonne to 3,000 metric tonne per day, resulting in total increase of 1,550 metric tonne per day.

With the enhanced capacities, IFFCO's urea production will go up from 36.89 lakh tonne per annum to 42 lakh per annum.

The total cost of project is expected to be Rs 480 crore. The installed cost of de-bottlenecking is estimated at Rs 24 lakh per metric tonne per day in comparison to around Rs 60 lakh per metric tonne per day urea, envisaged for the new plant. With this, IFFCO is will replace costlier fuel and will save Rs 365 crore per annum in subsidy.

"The scheme for additional production would be one of the cheapest options and the cost of production of urea by this option would be cheaper than the imported urea," said Awasthi, at the board meet held recently.

The new pricing scheme for fertiliser by the Central government has considerably affected the survival of fertiliser industry. To reduce the production costs, IFFCO has already launched energy savings scheme in all of its ammonia-urea plants which are under implementation at various stages.