950804

Industry fails to meet local demand

100,000 tonnes urea

to be imported for

rabi crop

LAHORE: Pakistan would import 100,000 metric tonnes urea for Rabi crop as local industry failed to meet the domestic demand due to severe gas-shortage and increase in consumption by about five to seven percent.

According to information, Fertilizer Department (FID) had invited tenders in February this year to export 87,500 metric tonnes urea to India, Vietnam, and other countries worth $7.8 million. Local industry has exported 68,500 metric tonnes but export of the remaining 19,000 metric tonnes has been stopped by the industry following government instructions to this effect.

Out of the total 87,500 metric tonnes Pak-China fertilizer was allowed to export 50,000 metric tonnes, while National Fertilizer Corporation (NFC) was permitted to export the remaining 37,500 metric tonnes.

The basis of government decision has been the slightly oversupply of urea last year. "Now the situation is entirely different from the last couple of months when we were exporting urea. Now we require 100,000 metric tonnes for the rabi crop (winter) by November, December", an official said.

Now the government had decided to open international tender for import of urea by middle of August supplies to be completed by October.

The imported urea will be given out to local manufacturers, according to their production capacity who will then market the commodity along with their own produce after adding Rs. 10 to 20 per beg of 50 kilogramme to the price of existing market rate of Rs 250.

The price hike of urea is expected due to high international prices of urea which range between $220 and $230 per tonne.

Pakistan has a manufacturing capacity of three million metric tonnes urea, 800,000 metric tonnes DAP, 4,00,000 metric tonnes nitrophos and one lakh metric tonnes of SSP fertilizer.

Currently, there are 10 fertilizer units in Pakistan with an installed capacity of 4.143 million metric tonnes, out of which six public sector units have the installed capacity of 1.674 million metric tonnes, while the remaining four private sector units manufacture 2.469 million metric tonnes, industry source said.

The production of nitrogeneous fertilizer has increased by 0.66 percent while that of phosphatic fertilizer declined by 9.17 percent during the period from July 1994 to March 1995.

But the severe 'gas-shedding' badly reduced urea production this year and with high price of cotton in the market, the farmers consumed 5 to 7 percent more fertilizer.

Another reason for increase in fertilizer consumption is that an area of over 300,000 acres had been added to cotton crop during this year.-PPI