The Hindu Business Line : Little progress in fertiliser cos' plan for joint LNG facility

THE proposed mega alliance of domestic fertiliser manufacturers, spearheaded by the two giant fertiliser co-operatives, Iffco and Kribcho, for setting up their own LNG sourcing and regassification facility for meeting the industry's feedstock requirement, has made only limited progress so far.

According to sources, though a core group has been formed through the Fertiliser Association of India (FAI) with representation from almost all the urea manufacturers, no significant progress has been made thus far.

"We have floated a tender through Iffco. But we are yet to receive quotations from some of the suppliers. We had held individual meetings too, with the suppliers," said senior FAI officials.

Earlier, it was proposed that major fertiliser co-operatives such as Iffco and Kribhco and PSUs like Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilisers (RCF), National Fertilisers (NFL), Madras Fertilisers (MFL) and Paradeep Phosphates explore the possibilities of having their own joint venture LNG facility for meeting their feedstock requirements or work out an alliance for importing gas and setting up regassification and transportation facilities.

The idea gathered momentum following the stalemate between Petronet LNG and fertiliser manufacturers on the pricing of LNG imported by Petronet from Iran and marketed by GAIL.

Sources said that the current tender was to identify possible sources of gas and the supply contract would be on door-delivery basis for which the prices would be determined separately for each manufacturing unit.

Only after several reliable sources are identified could the idea of having separate facility for the fertiliser sector be considered.

However, the sources said that the whole project would have a long gestation period and require huge investments.

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