PSUs to revive Talcher urea plant with Rs 8k cr investment

PTI Updated - September 05, 2013 at 10:49 PM.

The consortium of Rashtriya Chemicals Fertilisers (RCF), GAIL, CIL and FCIL will invest Rs 8,000 crore for the revival of urea plant at Talcher in Orissa with production capacity of 1.2 million tonnes per annum.

The four public sector undertakings (PSUs) today signed a memorandum of understanding to form two separate joint ventures to revive Fertiliser Corporation of India Ltd (FCIL) Talcher plant. It has also been planned to build a power plant and coal washery facility at the site. The project is expected to be commissioned by 2017.

“...It has been decided to form two separate joint venture companies for the proposed revival. First joint venture would be for upstream coal gasification with GAIL having major stake and second would be for urea-cum-ammonia nitrate complex with RCF and CIL having major stake,” Fertiliser Minister, Srikant Jena said here.

“We have proposed the name ‘Talchar Chemical Fertiliser Company’ for the downstream joint venture and it is likely to get registered by October-end this year,” Jena added.

According to the senior officials in downstream, both RCF and CIL will have around 42 per cent stake each, while GAIL will have 5 per cent and remaining with FCIL.

In upstream, around 80 per cent stake will be of GAIL and about 10 per cent stake will be with the technology provider of coal gasification.

The agreement was signed in the presence of Petroleum Minister M Veerappa Moily and Coal Minister Sriprakash Jaiswal.

The Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction (BIFR) de-registered FCIL on June 27, paving the way for the revival of its closed urea plants, after the government had approved the proposal to revive 5 closed units of FCIL at Sindri, Talcher, Ramagundam, Gorakhpur and Korba.

The government had also approved the waiver of loan and interest amounting to Rs 10,644 crore to FCIL.

The five units of FCIL including Talcher were closed down in September 2002.

Published on September 5, 2013 14:10