Iffco to up capacity to 4.2 million tonnes

The Indian Farmers' Fertiliser Cooperative Ltd (Iffco) plans to expand the total urea production capacity of its four plants to 4.2 million tonnes, up from the present 3.69 million tonnes.

It also proposes to modify its Phulpur plant to enable the use of liquefied natural gas (LNG), instead of naphtha as feedstock. These projects will be implemented at a cost of Rs 480 crores in two years.

With this, the urea production capacity of Iffco's Phulpur plant will increase from the present 1,670 tonnes per day (TPD) to 2,080 TPD. Similarly, the capacity of three other plants (Phulpur-II, Aonla-I and Aonla-II), will go up from the present 2,620 TPD to 3,000 TPD each.

According to Iffco sources, the cost of expanding the capacity of the existing plants would work out to around Rs 24 lakh/TPD. This is much lower than the estimated cost of Rs 60 lakh/TPD required to set up new plants.

The switchover to LNG as feed stock will help the company reduce the cost of production, besides providing the government a saving of around Rs 365 crore per year on subsidy.

Iffco has already launched energy-saving schemes in these four plants as well as the ammonia-urea plant at Kalol, to be able to remain cost-effective under the new fertiliser pricing scheme of the government. Iffco's urea would be cheaper than imported urea, company sources maintained.