Fire broke out at site on March 11.
Bayer CropScience AG, a leading crop science company in the areas of crop protection, non-agricultural pest control, seeds and traits, has been asked by the Gujarat Pollution Control Board (GPCB) to stop production at its Ankleshwar site subsequent to a fire that broke out at a storage tank on site on March 11.
The company said in a release today that it has stopped manufacturing at site and is working closely with the local authorities and is seeking to resume production as early as feasible. A company spokesperson said, "We have enough stocks of the key products manufactured at Ankleshwar, therefore do not see any impact on supply to customers in the nearterm." He declined to indicate the inventory size.
The Ankleshwar site has five active ingredient and two formulation plants, which produce products for Indian as well as global market. The site produces nearly 4000 tonnes of Active Ingredients and 4000 tonnes of formulations. In addition, three more projects for manufacturing Active Ingredients are in process of finalisation.
The fire that broke out on March 11 at a storage tank located at the ground floor of Ethoprophos plant caused leakage of marcaptane and phosphorus tri-chloride gases and death of plant incharge engineer Vaibhav Saxena, 27. The company has claimed that there was minimal impact on the rest of the plant and the neighbouring area as the fire was brought under control within a short time.
