NTPC, CIL incorporate JV to revive Fertilizer Corp plants

NTPC Ltd said in a BSE filing that "pursuant to joint venture agreement dated May 16, 2016 signed with Coal India Ltd, a Joint Venture Company in the name of 'Hindustan Urvarak & Rasayn Limited', with 50:50 shareholding by NTPC & Coal India has been incorporated on June 15, 2016".

 The joint venture firm will take up revival of Gorakhpur and Sindri plants of ailing Fertilizer Corporation of India Ltd by setting up ammonia urea plants at each locations.

NTPC and Coal India (CIL) had last month entered into a pact for setting up a joint venture firm to revive fertiliser plants at Sindhri and Gorakhpur. The two firms will produce 1.27 million tonnes of urea per annum. 

The revitalisation of these plants would help generate 1.27 million tonnes per annum of urea along with other associated chemicals from each plant, bridging the demand-supply gap of urea which is about 8 million tonnes per annum currently," CIL had said.

"Things, however, are at the initial stage and both companies will put their heads together in finalising a detailed roadmap and mapping out other details in a threadbare manner in days to come," a CIL official had said.

The gas would be made available through the proposed Jagdishpur-Haldia pipeline to be 

constructed by GAIL.

Last year, CIL had entered into a joint venture agreement with GAIL and fertiliser majors RCF and FCIL to incorporate a firm for setting up and operating new ammonia urea complex in Talcher, Odisha.

 These agreements are part of the governments plan to revive loss-making and closed fertiliser plants through JVs of profit-making PSUs with a view to increasing domestic production of the farm nutrient.