Ramagundam fertiliser plant gets set for commissioning

The sick Fertilizer Corporation of India plant at Ramagundam, now being revived under the new avatar of Ramagundam Fertilizers and Chemicals Limited (RFCL), is ready for commissioning.

Taken up with an outlay of ₹5,000 crore, the brownfield fertiliser unit, which was to be commissioned by March 2020 was put on hold following the lock down due to to the coronavirus pandemic.

After the State Cabinet meet last week, Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao had announced that the fertiliser plant is ready for commissioning. This plant will play a significant role in the State agriculture providing critical fertilisers.

“With a huge area coming under cultivation due to the development of irrigation projects in the State, more acreage is set to come under cultivation during the upcoming kharif season. The Ramagundam plant will provide the much-needed fertiliser back-up for the State,” he said.

Plant revival

The Fertilizer Corporation of India (FCI) plant located in Ramagundam had become sick and stopped production. The Narendra Modi government decided to revive some of the sick FCI plants in the country, including this one.

Consequently, Ramagundam Fertiliser Corporation Limited was incorporated on February 2015 with the objective of setting up a gas-fired urea manufacturing plant through a joint venture company of National Fertilizers Limited (NFL) with 26 per cent equity, Engineers India Limited (26 per cent), Fertilizer Corporation of India limited (11 per cent), Telangana government (11 per cent), GAIL India Limited (14.3 per cent) and HTAS consortium (11.7 per cent). The ₹5,000-crore project has been funded in debt:equity ratio of 70:30 per cent. The agreement had envisaged ammonia and urea plants of 2,200 MT per day and 3,850 MT per day capacity, respectively, at the existing fertiliser plant site.

The venture was commissioned when Ananth Kumar was Minister for Chemicals and Fertilizers and Dharmendra Pradhan, Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas.

The revived plant will help in increasing the indigenous urea production in the country. The proposed plant was to be completed by 2018 and the natural gas supply for the plant was linked to the Mallavram-Bilwara pipeline and water supply was to be met from the Sripada Yellampally barrage built over Godavari river.

As per the arrangement when the venture was formed, NFL will also provide marketing services to the venture and EIL, engineering, procurement and construction management consultancy services for the project.

The Telangana government backed its revival by extending various concessions, including supply of water for the Sripada Yellampalli Project and necessary power supplies from TS Transco.

The gas supply for the RFCL has been linked from the 365km gas pipeline from Kakinada with linkage from Gujarat State Petronet Limited.