FACT suffers Rs 152-crore loss

By James Paul | 01 Oct 2001

Kochi: Fertilisers and Chemicals Travancore Ltd (FACT) suffered a loss of Rs 151.95 crore for the year 2000-01. This includes depreciation of Rs 96.5 crore and interest of Rs 98.8 crore, despite achieving new record in production and marketing.

Addressing the 57th annual general meeting of the company here, FACT CMD T T Thomas said the sale of 14.8 lakh tonne of fertilisers during the year was an all-time record, surpassing the previous best of 13.2 lakh tonne in 1995-96.

The sale of 52,910 tonne of caprolactam was also a new high as against the previous best of 50,237 tonne.

The restructuring proposal of the company is under the construction of the Union government, he said. “The recent increase of power tariff by the Kerala state government will impose an additional burden of Rs 15 crore on the company. The 3-per cent rise in railway freight will also affect all the segments of the company.“

The breakdown of major equipment of the ammonia-urea plant of the Kochi division has caused a stoppage of urea production from July this year.

So far, the production this year has been: 105 per cent target of fertilisers; 100 per cent target of caprolactam; and 101 per cent target of ammonium sulphate.