April data: Fertiliser sales soar to 363,000 tons

In January-April, urea demand rises 15% to 1.87m tons.

KARACHI: Fertiliser sales in April 2015 jumped to 363,000 tons, up by a significant 41% compared to 258,000 tons in April 2014, provisional numbers show.

In the first four months of calendar year 2015 (4MCY15), urea sales stood at 1.877 million tons, up 15% compared to 1.639 million tons in the same period of 2014, Arif Habib Limited reported on Tuesday.

According to company-wise breakdown, combined urea sales of Fauji Fertiliser Company (FFC) and Fauji Fertiliser Bin Qasim (FFBL) went down 2% month-on-month to 218,000 tons. In 4MCY15, urea sales of the two companies increased by 10% year-on-year.



On the other hand, Engro urea off-take declined by 28% month-on-month to 120,000 tons. However, Engro posted 10% year-on-year growth in sales to 601,000 tons in 4MCY15.

The major decline was recorded in sales of National Fertiliser Marketing Limited (NFML), which dropped 32% month-on-month to 8,000 tons. However, sales depicted 10% year-on-year growth in 4MCY15. Closing inventory for urea available with local producers, as of April 30, stood at 116,000 tons, while total inventory (both local and imported) was recorded at 375,000 tons.

Di-ammonium phosphate (DAP) sales showed some improvement with 10% month-on-month and 40% year-on-year increase to 53,000 tons in April this year. For 4MCY15, DAP sales posted a meagre decline of 1% year-on-year to 237,000 tons.

FFBL sold 23,000 tons of DAP in April, translating into a decline of 20% month-on-month, while the figure was up 24% year-on-year. Furthermore, 4MCY15 cumulative figures remained flat at 108,000 tons.

Engro’s DAP sales recorded a growth of 187% month-on-month and 101% year-on-year to stand at 23,000 tons in April. In 4MCY15, Engro’s DAP sales posted 7% year-on-year growth to 59,000 tons.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 13^th,  2015.

Like Business on Facebook, follow @TribuneBiz on Twitter to stay informed and join in the conversation.