Ghorashal-Polash fertiliser plant
Proposal to be tabled before cabinet committee tomorrow
�Tk 7,885 crore
project plant will be constructed through floating international tender and bidders� financing�
FAISAL MAHMUD
The proposal for constructing the planned Ghorashal-Palash Fertiliser plant will be raised before the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs tomorrow, sources with the Ministry of Industries said.
The plant will be constructed through floating international tender and bidders financing, sources added.
Earlier, the World Bank and Japan government were approached to finance this Tk 7,885 crore project.
The World Bank however had declined to provide funding for the project while Japan hasnt replied till today, Industry Ministry sources said.
Under the circumstances, the energy ministry planned to implement the project through open tender and bidders financing. A proposal for implementing that will be placed at the cabinet committee.
Earlier, the industry ministry decided to merge Urea Fertiliser Factory Ltd (UFFL) and Palash Eurea Fertiliser Factory Ltd (PUFFL) into a single factory under a single company as the maintenance frequency of both the factories rose abnormally.
Documents provided by the industry ministry showed that UFFL uses old technology to produce fertiliser and it consumes huge amount of gas -53.65 MCF (equals the volume of 1,000 cubic feet (cf) of natural gas) to produce per tonne urea fertiliser. Also the down time (inactive period of the factory) of the UFFL per year is 120.75 days.
PUFFL also uses old technology and requires 48 MCF gas for producing per tonne Urea. The downtime of PUFFL is 25.2 days per year.
A pre-feasibility study conducted by the
industry ministry found that by using the consumed gas of those two factories (64.7 MMCFD (million cubic feet per day), installation of 2600 MTD (metric tonne per day) capacity fertiliser factory is possible at the open space of PUFFL.
It also found that with an additional 20 MMCFD gas, the capacity of that fertiliser factory could be increased up to 3500 MTD. The gas required for producing per tonne of Urea would be only 22 MCF.
It is to be noted that by using the same amount of gas, UFFL and PUFFL are producing 1300 MCD gas now.
UFFL is the second pioneer fertiliser factory of the country, located at Palash thana of Narshingdi district was established in 1970. Palash Urea Fertiliser Factory Ltd which is a symbol of friendship between the Peoples Republic of China and Bangladesh is also located at Palash thana. It was established in 1985.
