The Hindu Business Line : ‘FACT facing crisis on rising sulphur prices’

Thiruvananthapuram, July 11 The Fertilisers and Chemicals Travancore (FACT) was facing severe crisis due to a steep increase in the price of sulphur in the international market, the Industries Minister, Mr Elamaram Kareem, said in the State Assembly on Wednesday.

Replying to a submission, the Minister said the company had stopped purchase of sulphur as it was unable to pass the additional input costs on to the consumers by increasing the prices of ammonium sulphate and caprolactam.

Added to this, the Centre had refused to compensate the company for the hike in sulphur price by including it in the price concession scheme for Factomphose.

Mr Kareem said the company had reoriented the operations of its plants to facilitate optimal use of available sulphur stock.

It had also suspended the operations of caprolactam, ammonium sulphate and ammonia plants and drastically reduced the capacity of the sulphuric acid plant.

This should ensure production of composite fertilisers and bring down the company’s losses, he said.

The company had requested the Centre to grant price concession on its average expenditure on account of the recommendations of the Tariff Commission, to compensate it for losses resulting from naphtha-based ammonium sulphate production till liquefied natural gas (LNG) was made available to it and to allow it to draw LNG from the Petronet terminal coming up in Kochi.

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