RCF asks PDCIL to draft Talcher revival plan

The public sector Rastriya Chemicals and Fertilizer Limited (RCF) has asked Planning and Development of India Limited (PDIL) under the Fertilizer ministry to work out a feasibility report on the revival of Talcher Urea plant.

This follows the Union cabinet decision in April to revive eight closed fertilizer units in the country.

RCF is the only profit making public sector fertilizer company which has evinced interest to take over Talcher and Durgapur (West Bengal) Fertilizer plant for revival.

PDIL corporate office sources told "Business Standard" that the feasibility report on Talcher as asked by RCF in June was under preparation and it would be submitted to RCF within a month.

Sources hinted that while there is no problem of water in Talcher, non-availabilty of gas remains the biggest hurdle in the way of reviving the plant.

There is no source of gas nearby.

The revival plan includes proposal to convert Talcher plant from a coal based urea plant to a gas-based urea unit with capacity to produce 2000 tonne of ammonia per day.

The estimated cost for the revival is around Rs 4000 crore.

RCF has asked PDIL to prepare the feasibility report after its three member official team headed by a deputy general manager made a three day visit to Talcher in May.

They held detailed discussion with the General Manager of the plant and gathered reports on the availability of water and other raw materials to produce ammonia, sources said.

After the Talcher fertilizer unit was wound up in 2002, only 12 employees including a General Manager were continuing as the care taker of the plant.

Though fertilizer experts here are elated over the center's decision to revive the dead unit, they are sceptical over the process being adopted for the same.

The centre has made it clear that the unit will be revived as a gas-based urea plant.

There is no gas source near Talcher, they pointed out.

In this context, the only hope is the proposed gas pipe line to be laid by Reliance Industries carrying gas from Krishna-Godavari basin to West Bengal via Bhadrak in Orissa.

The proposed pipeline is unlikely to come up before 2009.

However, a clear picture on revival of Talcher unit will only emerge after the submission of PDIL report of RCF.

The coal-based Talcher Urea plant, one of the four urea units in eastern India, was producing 900 tonne of urea per day.

It was catering to the needs of farmers in western Orissa and West Bengal.

It provided direct and indirect employment to 30000 people in the area.

During the NDA rule in 2002 all the four coal-based urea units at Barauni, Durgapur, Sindri and Talcher were closed by Board for Industrial Financial and Reconstruction (BIFR) due to continuous loss and lack of alternative revival proposals by the Centre.