KOCHI: The sale of fertilisers by the public sector Fertilisers and Chemicals Travancore (FACT) continues to break records even as it looks forward to the Union Government sanctioning a revival package that has now been pending for a while.

Till the end of February, sale of Factamfos, FACT's premier fertiliser mix, touched over seven lakh tonnes compared to the 5.12 lakh tonnes during the corresponding period in the previous financial year. Total fertiliser sale during the period was 8.76 lakh tonnes whereas it stood at 7.49 lakh tonnes till the end of February last year.

Earnings from the sale of fertilisers till the end of February this year stands at Rs.775 crores compared to Rs.599 crores during the same period last financial year. FACT sources said that the sales and sales turnovers during the period have been at record levels.

Earlier in the year, the company had beaten what are usually the lean months to log significantly high levels of fertiliser sales while in the production front it maintained positive results.

The sales of Factamfos in January touched 72,844 tonnes while total fertiliser sales touched 77,581 tonnes. This was against a Factamfos sale of 50,088 tonnes in the previous year.

Meanwhile, industry sources have called for lobbying by MPs from Kerala for getting the FACT revival proposal past its last hurdle. Although the Union Budget for the next fiscal is virtually silent on proposals for revival from individual public sector undertakings, it is expected that FACT's case having been approved by the Committee of Secretaries would come through at the earliest.

The revival proposal, pending with the Cabinet Committee, is expected to be considered at one of its upcoming meetings this month.

The rehabilitation scheme had proposed that the Union Government convert half of the Rs.669 crores outstanding (Rs.584 crores loan plus interest thereon) into equity and the rest be written off.

On the approval of the revival proposal also hangs the fate of several joint venture projects that had been mooted by the company late last year to bolster its profitability in the near future. FACT was also exploring the possibility of obtaining LNG on its own to replace naphtha.

The joint venture projects mooted by FACT included a 1,000-tonne-per-day sulphuric acid plant, 360-tonne-per-day phosphoric acid plant, a 2,800-tonne-per-day ammophos plant and a proposal to use its large stock of gypsum to manufacture building materials. Implementing these proposals would have involved an investment to the tune of Rs.1,000 crores.

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