The Fertiliser Corporation of India limited (FCIl) on Thursday signed an MoU with Coal India ltd. (CIl), GAIl India ltd and Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilisers ltd (RCF) for revival of the defunct Talcher urea plant here.
The MoU was signed in presence of Union Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Veerapa Moily, Minister of Coal, Sriprakash Jaiswal and Minister of State (I/C) for Chemicals and Fertilisers, Statistics and Planning Implementation, Srikant Kumar Jena in New Delhi.
Speaking on the occasion Jena said that the Talcher Unit of FCIl was being revived by a consortium of RCF, CIl, GAIl and FCIl at an estimated cost of about `8,000 crore, adding that, the project was being setup on Coal Gasification for production of 1.2 MTPA Urea and Ammonium Nitrate. CIl shall supply about 5 million tons per annum of coal for this project.
“It has been decided to form two separate Joint Venture (JV) Companies for the proposed revival. JV-1 would take up upstream coal gasification and gas purification with GAIl having major stake. JV-2 would take up down-stream Urea-cum-Ammonium Nitrate Complex & Off-sites, including Power Plant & Coal Washery and will have major stakes of RCF & CIl with minor stake by FCIl & GAIl,” said Jena.
FCIl, a multi-unit fertilizer PSU under the Dept of Fertilizer (DoF) having units Sindri, Talcher, Ramagundam, Gorakhpur and Korba was closed in September 2002.
Recently, the CCEA approved waiver of Government of India loan and interest of about `11,000 crores on FCIl and subsequently FCIl was de-registered from BIFR.
The pre-project activities for revival of Talcher project have already started. GAIl has already floated tender for pre-qualification of Coal-Gas Technology Supplier. RCF has also floated tender calling for lSTK bids for Ammonia - Urea plant.
The project will not only reduce the dependence on imported urea but shall also utilise indigenously available feedstock. The project is expected to be commissioned by 2017.