The Chittagong Urea Fertiliser Limited (CUFL) will resume production on February 7, after two years of shutdown due to technical problems. Besides, the Ashuganj Fertiliser Factory will begin production on February 5. “CUFL was shut down on January 31, 2015, due to problems in the urea reactor. The factory will resume ammonia production on February 7 and urea on the 12th,” senior secretary in the Industries Ministry, Mosharraf Hossain Bhuiyan, told The Independent yesterday. An Italian company carried out repair work in the urea reactor twice, and only after that it was decided to begin production again, he said in reply to a query.
“We have installed a new cooling tower and urea reactor re-aligning, during the repair work. At least 1,500 tonnes of urea will be produced daily at the CUFL, after it re-opens,” he said.
He further said that the Ashuganj Fertiliser Factory was shut down in October last year, because of technical problems.
“It will resume production on February 5. We hope, the factory will be able to produce 1,500 tonnes of fertiliser every day,” Bhuiyan added.
The chairman of the Bangladesh Chemical Industries Corporation (BCIC), Mohammad Iqbal, claimed that there is enough stock of urea fertiliser in the country.
“There are 8.13 lakh tonnes of urea fertiliser in warehouses across the country, as of January 31. A total of 13.79 lakh tonnes of urea fertiliser have already been distributed among the farmers, from June 2016 to January 2017,” the BCIC chairman said. He further said that urea fertiliser is being imported from Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, under the G2G process. “Three ships have already reached Bangladesh with 69,000 tonnes of imported urea fertiliser. Fertiliser is currently being unloaded from a ship, carrying 27,000 tonnes, at Mongla port,” Mohammad Iqbal said. Two ships, with 42,000 tonnes of fertiliser, are waiting for unloading, he added. He claimed that factories under the BCIC have been producing 5,000 tonnes of urea fertiliser every day, and 3,000 tonnes will be added from the CUFL and Ashuganj factories, daily, from February. Bangladesh has an annual demand of around 50 lakh tonnes of fertiliser, and, of them, 27 lakh tonnes are urea and the rest  non-urea fertilisers.