Iffco to expand urea capacity

The Indian Farmer Fertiliser Cooperative Limited (IFFCO) will enhance capacities at four of its plants in order to bridge the gap between supply and demand of urea in the country.

Iffco would convert its Phulpur plant to use liquefied natural gas (LNG) to reduce the production cost of urea, in pursuant to the central government's policy for switching over to natural gas and LNG.

The capacities will be raised in keeping with government policy on capacity enhancement," U S Awasthi, managing director, Iffco, said.

Iffco's two units at Phulpur and two more at Aonia, both in UP, will enhance capacity in the next two years.

Urea capacity at Phulpur-one will increase from 1670 metric tonnes per day to 2080tpd. Capacities of the other three plants will be enhanced from 2620tpd to 3000tpd.

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

The Phulpur plants will switch from naphtha to LNG to reduce cost of urea. In addition, carbon dioxide will be recovered from flue gases at Aonia and reused for converting ammonia to urea.

The project cost for expansion and changeover at the four units plants would be Rs 480 crore. Iffco's use of a cheaper fuel will save Rs 365 crore per annum now received as subsidy from the central government.

"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.

The new pricing scheme for fertiliser notified by the central government had hit the bottomline of industry players.

Iffco has launched energy savings programmes at all its ammonia-urea plants at Kalol, Phulpur and Aonia.