Urea offtake in the 11 months of 2004 reached record level of 3.95 million tons showing an increase of 9 percent, according to the latest report of National Fertiliser Development Centre. Urea offtake in the month of November was 500 thousand tons, which increased by 7.0 per cent over November 2003, while DAP offtake was 213 thousand tons, which declined by 29.3 per cent. The decrease in DAP offtake in November was due to carry over stocks with dealers and its high price.
Experts believe that in the peak season of December 700 to 800 thousand of urea will be consumed. This will affect the ending inventory as of December. National Fertiliser Development Centre predicts ending inventory of urea of only 23 thousand tons. Thus urea supply in December and first week of January will remain under pressure, which may cause pocket shortages and price hike, says the report.
The retail prices of urea Sona and Kissan, TSP, AS and SOP increased within a range of up to 1.6 per cent. The remaining products DAP, NP, SSP powdered and granular increased by 6.8, 5.6, 4.7 and 5.9 percent, respectively.
The report said, the current fertiliser availability, their prices, offtake pattern and water shortages indicate that fertiliser consumption at farm level, particularly of phosphates, may not show improvement over Rabi of last year. Agriculture Extension as well as private sector has to make concerted efforts to convince farmer to use substitutes of DAP such as TSP, SSP, MAP, NP at sowing and apply any phosphatic fertiliser with first irrigation if missed at planting of wheat.
Urea supply is tight at this stage, which may improve after mid January.
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