LAHORE:
Unjustified distribution of natural gas has crippled fertiliser manufacturers over the last couple of years, leading to a sharp drop in production of urea and may eventually cause closure of plants, says an industry stakeholder.
Interacting with members of the Agriculture Journalists Association on Tuesday, Fertiliser Manufacturers Pakistan Advisory Council Executive Director Shahab Khawaja highlighted the challenges faced by the sector.
The advisory council is a newly established representative body of fertiliser manufacturers.
Khawaja said the fertiliser industry had become the biggest victim of a “flawed gas distribution policy” as discrimination in gas supply to different sectors dealt a blow to the urea manufacturers and left thousands of workers jobless.
“If the current situation persists, then we may be forced to close all four fertiliser plants, which are linked with the gas distribution network of Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited (SNGPL).”
Fertiliser plants on this network had been provided gas for only two months so far this year, he said.
Khawaja said farmers also paid a heavy price of unwarranted closure of the plants. In the last 18 months, he revealed, the farming community borne an additional burden of Rs53 billion on account of higher urea prices.
Current installed capacity of fertiliser plants in the country is 6.9 million tons per annum, which is sufficient to meet urea demand. “We are blessed with the ability to not only produce sufficient urea for domestic use, but a handsome quantity can also be exported,” he said and put Pakistan at 7th place in the world in terms of urea manufacturing capacity.
However, a significant part of this capacity is lying idle because of absence of natural gas – a raw material for manufacturing urea. Urea production has plunged to just 4.4 million tons this year.
According to Khawaja, against average gas supply for 3.6 days a week in 2011, the supply was only one day a week for the fertiliser plants so far this year. “How can an industry survive while working for only one day in a week?”
He pointed out that the slump in production forced the government to import a vast quantity of urea, putting an additional burden on the economy.
From January 2011 to June 2012, 2.2 million tons of urea worth Rs1.1 billion had been imported while the government spent a subsidy of Rs57 billion on its sale to farmers at special rates. Last week, the government also gave the go-ahead for further import of 300,000 tons of urea.
The financial health of fertiliser plants has worsened because of the sharp decrease in gas supplies. The plants running on SNGPL network have become loss-making units from profitable ones within a short span of one year.
From the first quarter of 2011 to the first quarter of 2012, the revenue loss for the plants was recorded at 32%, besides 133% erosion in profitability, Khawaja observed.
In the second quarter, the financial condition of the plants deteriorated with all four plants fully closed for the past three months. As a result, Khawaja said, the companies had been unable to service their debt. Total bank exposure of the plants is about Rs150 billion.
The workers are also feeling the pinch in the shape of lay-offs. Agritech, one of the oldest fertiliser plants, has already filed a petition in a labour court to lay off 3,000 workers and other plants may also be forced to resort to the move if the situation does not improve.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 15th, 2012.
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Engro fertilizers, the largest conglomerate of Pakistan, invested heavily in Fertilizers and other busienesses for the growth and prosperity of this country. Still Engro has ambitious plans, but all have major set back after the corrupt Govt. failed to honour its contract of supplying gas to its newly installed Worlds largert single train Ammonia Urea complex. Now even the financers are reluctant to invest a single penny in Pakistan despite good repute and professsional attributes of Engro Corporation. With this rate all companies will divest from Pakistan and you can say TATA to any new FDI. Very gloomy and trying time not for industry I must say but for Pakistan. May Allah Bless our country.
These suffered fertilizers companies are not fertilizers producing unit .These are institution which develop thousand of trained professional which are serving across the world and earning foreign exchange. is CNG produce such a skill manpower. Government should immediately close sector step wise such high tech industry to survive. it is not a rocket science just reduce tax and levy on petrol to bring it price down at CNG level.As consumption of petroleum product increase revenue on petroleum also increase CNG also a major player line loses as CNG sector grow line loses also grow
Democracy is the best revenge!
where is the supreme court now? not public enough to be important?
I want imran khan to address this issue if he wants my vote.
Pakistan is an agriculture based economy, if fertiliser sector will not be restored by providing minimum amount of gas then we will face unemployment in food as well as goods sector. How long our national treasurer will bear this mammouth amount of defiicit in case of subsidity on imported fertilizers. We are cutting our branch on which we are standing. Some has to ponder about it our next generations would not like to live like african people are living todays. Allah may bless our country with sincere governence.
PPP has been a nightmare in governing the country...However, we will die chanting the Jeay Bhutto slogan
This is the worst government in the history of Pakistan. Once major chemical industry shuts down, you can not later re-start it in a jiffy. It will be shutdown forever. Implications are beyond belief. This gas mismanagement will make the best of our engineers to look for jobs outside Pakistan and move permemantly consdeiring nothing is available in Pakistan. This is one of the greatest problems Pakistan is facing. I wish the government could have been departed yesterday.