Fertiliser-maker Zuari Industries Ltd today reported a 14% decline in net profit to Rs 31.38 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2011.
The company, a part of the Adventz Group, had reported a net profit of Rs 36.57 crore for the corresponding year-ago period, it said in a filing to the BSE.
Net sales of the company rose by 22% to Rs 1,856.19 crore in the third quarter of the current fiscal from Rs 1,524.06 crore in the same quarter of the previous fiscal.
Zuari had last year in December announced a joint venture (JV) with Mitsubishi Corporation to form MCA Phosphates Pte Ltd. Zuari has a 30% stake in the JV, while the remaining 70% is with Mitsubishi.
The Singapore-based JV firm has acquired a 30% stake in a Peruvian mine, Fosfatos del Pacifico SA (Fospac), for USD 46.12 million (about Rs 226 crore). The Fospac project is expected to have an initial production capacity of 2.5 million tonnes of phosphate rock -- the main feedstock for key fertiliser di-ammonium phosphate (DAP).
Mitsubishi Corporation has signed an offtake agreement with Fosfatos for the entire production of phosphate rock. In tandem, Zuari has signed a back-to-back offtake agreement with Mistubishi to take half of the Fospac production of phosphate rock every year.
Last year, the company had to temporarily shut down the urea and complex fertiliser manufacturing plants at its production facilities in Goa due a fire accident at its multi-functional pipeline feeding naphtha, a raw material for urea.
Zuari's fertiliser producing facility in Vasco-da-Gama, Goa, comprises four separate plants of ammonia, urea and two other plants that manufacture various grades of complex fertilisers, apart from di-ammonium phosphate (DAP).
Shares of the company fell marginally by 0.57% to settle at Rs 454.30 apiece on the BSE today.