India eyes urea exports with Rs50,000 cr revival plan for closed fertiliser units

India plans to spend Rs50,000 crore for reviving closed fertilizer plants and raise its annual urea production capacity by 7.5 million tonnes, helping the country to become a net exporter of urea by 2021, fertiliser minister Ananth Kumar told a news conference on Thursday.

"From an importing country, we will become an exporting country," said Kumar. "For food security, we need fertiliser security."

Addressing the media after a joint review meeting, Ananthkumar told the media that the revival of the fertilizer projects at Gorakhpur, Barauni, Sindri and Talcher, would create an additional annual production capacity of 7.5 million

tonnes, making India self-reliant in meeting the annual domestic demand of around 32 million tonnes, from being a net importer currently.

Financial allocations and the ground level work would start in 2017 and the five plants would become fully functional by 2020-21, he added.

Kumar said the government's strategy under the 'Fertilizer Security for Food Security', includes augmentation of existing fertilizer capacity by increasing the efficiency of the plants and revival of closed fertilizer projects. Kumar said

the country saw the highest ever production of urea (24.5 million tonnes) in the previous year without incurring any additional cost and utilising the existing capacity. He further mentioned that the 100 per cent Neem Coating Urea

has increased the per granule efficiency of urea by decreasing demand by 10 per cent and increasing the yield by 10 per cent.

The government also plans to set up a gas pipeline network to connect eastern India to National Gas Grid, petroleum minister told a joint meeting of the ministries of petroleum and chemicals.

Pradhan said the meeting also reviewed the progress of the construction of the pipeline network in eastern India, including the 2,650 km Jagdishpur-Haldia and Bokaro-Dhamra Natural Gas Pipeline, popularly known as 'Pradhan

Mantri Urja Ganga', and the 5 million tonne Dhamra LNG terminal. A total investment of Rs13,000 crore would be needed for the pipeline and another Rs6,000 crore for Dhamra LNG terminal, he added.

The minister said that this pipeline network would provide uninterrupted feedstock linkage to the revived fertilizer plants, wherein Gorakhpur, Barauni and Sindri plants would be based  on natural gas, while Talcher would be coal

gasification technology based, for which coal linkages have already been provided. Pradhan added that the foundation stones for the five fertilizer plants would be laid down post-monsoon this year and would be completed by

2020-21.

The Talcher unit is being revived by a consortium of PSUs, namely Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilizers (RCF), Gas Authority of India (GAIL), Coal India Ltd. (CIL) and FCIL by investing Rs8,000 crore. Indian Oil Corporation Ltd

(IOCL), CIL and National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) have registered a special purpose vehicle (SPV) by name Hindustan Urvarak and Rasayan Limited (HURL) for revival of closed urea plants of FCIL at Gorakhpur and

Sindri and of Hindustan Fertilizer Corporation of India Ltd. (HFCL) at Barauni, by an investment of Rs20,000 crore. He said an inter-ministerial committee (IMC) has been constituted to oversee the revival process.