Plan to build urea plant in N region

The government is planning to set up a urea fertiliser factory at a suitable site in the northern region of the country, reports BSS.

Bangladesh Chemical Industries Corporation (BCIC) has been asked to prepare relevant papers and select site immediately to establish the new urea fertiliser factory, the first of its kind in the region.

Industries Minister Tofail Ahmed told this at a meeting of the officials and chief executives of the BCIC and organisations under the ministry yesterday.

Tofail said the government will set up the factory to make urea supply easy to the dealers and farmers of the region.

The minister said the use of urea is increasing by 6-8 per cent annually and its lion's share is being utilised in the northern part of the country. He said the production capacity of the six urea factories is 20 lakh metric tons and this year the demand of urea is 23 lakh metric tons.

He said the dealers would have to collect fertilisers from the mills and local buffer godowns. The country has sufficient stock of fertiliser to meet the peak period (January-March) demand, the meeting was told.

The demand for urea in January is three lakh metric tons, of which, two lakh metric tons are being supplied from the factories and the rest from 29 buffer godowns in the country.

The demand for February and March will be 3.81 lakh metric tons and 3.28 lakh metric tons respectively. The BCIC has already finalised the plan to ensure adequate supply of urea in February and March.

The minister asked the BCIC officials to make a recovery plan for running the six urea factories with full capacity. He also urged the BCIC to take measures for converting four pulp and paper mills into profitable enterprises.

He also enquired about the progress of the setting up of two di-ammonium phosphate plants with a daily capacity of 800 metric tons each, which are now at the final stage of agreement with China and Japan.