First for India, GSFC starts selling locally-made calcium nitrate to cut imports

In a major push for Atmanirbhar Bharat (self-reliant India), chemicals major Gujarat State Fertilizers & Chemicals Limited (GSFC) on Thursday started selling locally made calcium nitrate — a 100-per cent imported water-soluble fertilizer.

Building up on its capabilities to make caprolactam and its by-product nitric acid, GSFC found economic viability to make calcium nitrate at its facility near Vadodara. The first consignments of the locally-made calcium nitrate and boronated calcium nitrate was sent to Solan in Himachal Pradesh and Bhavnagar in Saurashtra.

Union Minister of State for Chemicals and Fertilisers, Mansukh Mandaviya on Thursday launched the product online. “We identified about 79 chemicals where import substitution could take place. Of these, there are 39 chemicals, where we are 70-100 per cent dependent on imports. GSFC has identified 21 such chemicals to make in India and take a big leap to achieve the goal of Atmanirbhar Bharat,” the minister said in his video address. “We are planning to move all fertiliser plants in this direction and make the fertilizer-based chemical sector self-reliant,” he added.

Calcium Nitrate is a water soluble fertiliser so that plants can absorb more nutrients. Indian consumes about 1.25 lakh tonnes of calcium nitrate worth ₹225 crore per year, which is completely imported and about 76 per cent of that comes from China.

Initially, GSFC will produce with capacity of 5,000 tonnes per annum and take it to 25,000 tonnes in one year. “A new plant has to be set up for this. Gradually, over a period of three years, we hope to cover 50 per cent of India’s market share in this product,” Arvind Agarwal, CMD, GSFC, told BusinessLine after the launch.

Of the 21 identified products for the import substitution, five including the recently-launched methanol and calcium nitrate will be launched before March 2021. “Of these 21 products, 11 are pharma and biotech intermediate products, one is commodity, one is a fertiliser and the rest are chemical products,” said Agarwal.

Over the next 30 months, the company looks to substitute ₹3,000-crore worth of imports through these 21 products. An estimated ₹2,000 crore of investment has been earmarked for it.

For economic viability to withstand Chinese cost competitiveness, GSFC conducted extensive cost analysis.

“GSFC has an advantage overs. Our raw material for one plant comes from a by-product of another plant. In case of calcium nitrate, as a producer of caprolactam, nitric acid is the by-product for us, which is a major raw material for calcium nitrate. That is how the calcium nitrate cost economics worked for us. We applied such calculations for all products,” said Agarwal.

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