Does India have enough fertiliser stocks to tide over Iran war shock?
· Scroll
Through the month of March, major players of India’s fertiliser industry began showing the first signs of an impending crisis.
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Early in the month, a Gujarat Narmada Valley Fertilizers & Chemicals Limited plant in Gujarat announced that it was going to cut down on its planned production of neem-coated urea. In mid-March, two plants of National Fertilizers Limited in Punjab’s Namgal and Bhatinda ceased their operations.
These developments occurred after the Gas Authority of India Limited reduced the supply of liquified natural gas by 40% to each of these plants.
The cut in supply was a consequence of the conflict in West Asia, which escalated through March. India’s fertiliser industry depends heavily on liquified natural gas imported from the region as raw material to manufacture fertilisers domestically. Half of these imports come from Qatar alone, where the Ras Laffan liquefied natural gas plant was damaged on March 19.
It is not only the supply of raw materials that has been hit – India also directly imports finished products like urea and diammonium phosphate from Oman, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. With the Strait of Hormuz shut since the outbreak of the war, supplies of these raw materials and products have dwindled.
Even as farmers watched the situation with concern, the Indian government...