KARACHI - Fertilizer Manufacturers Pakistan Advisory Council (FMPAC) has demanded judicious distribution of natural resources to keep all the sectors of economy running in order to generate economic activities and subsequent generation of revenues. Executive Director FMPAC, Shahab Khawaja said that fertilizer sector is not burning the gas to run the plants alone, it offers maximum value addition by converting the raw gas into precious urea grains and country hugely benefits from the fertilizer industry.
Closing down few industries or giving priority to one sector over other would not solve our economic issues hence the best way forward should be to analyse which sector is creating maximum value addition with the natural resources, especially gas.
He informed that by not producing urea locally we would not only hurt the interest of poor farmers, who ensure food security of 190 million people of this country, but we have to import urea which is the most expensive form of energy on MMBTU basis, costing around $23/MMBTU, whereas RFO and LNG would be 30-50pc less expensive than urea on a MMBTU basis.
He said that due to worst-ever gas curtailment to fertilizer sector in last 3 years, country spent foreign exchange of $1.5 billion and also paid a subsidy of around Rs 80 billion on the imports of 3.4 million tons during 2010-12. He said that Pakistan cannot afford to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on urea import and we are hopeful that new government would ensure judicious distribution of gas amongst all the sectors of economy.
He warned that if gas remains discontinued to fertilizer plants in 2013 too, Pakistan would have to import 1 million tons of urea which can cost national exchequer $450 million and a subsidy of Rs 21 billion to match the imported urea price to domestic urea prices.