LAHORE – The fertilizer plants have claimed that all urea plants linked with the SNGPL, including Agritech, DH Fertilizers, Pakarab and Engro’s new plant, have faced a huge revenue loss, as their total sale stood at 150KT, 166KT less than 316KT urea sold in 1H of 2011, showing a decline of 52 per cent revenue loss. The plants claimed that the total urea production by SNGPL-based plants in first half of 2011 stood at 297KT which declined by 33pc to 198 KT in 1H of 2012. SNGPL based plants were only operated at 18pc of their capacity in 1H 2012 versus 25pc last year. During 1H 2012 SNGPL based fertilizer plants faced an estimated gas curtailment of 82pc in which Agritech and Pak Arab got gas for 63 days each while Engro Enven and DH Fertilizers got gas for 33 days of operations in first 6 months of 2012. In first quarter of year 2012 all SNGPL based plants that include Agritech, DH Fertilizers, Pakarab, Engro’s new plant as well as SSGC based FFBL faced a loss of revenue by 53pc compared with 1Q of 2011, generating Rs 8.16 billion revenue in 1Q 2012 compared to last years’ Rs 17.29 billion. In 2012, SNGPL based four plants as well as SSGC based FFBL lost profitability by 125pc and made a collective loss of Rs1.07 billion, whereas the same plants had made profit of Rs4.3 billion in first Quarter of 2011. The urea manufactures said that plants are facing the worst-ever crisis of their history as 82pc gas curtailment was never witnessed before 2012. They said that despite making an investment of $2.3 billion in last 4 years on new production capacity, making Pakistan world’s 7th largest urea manufacturer country is sitting on an idle urea capacity of over 3 million tons.Fertilizer sector official said that if the same gas curtailment continues during remaining 5 months of 2012, the plants would be forced to shut down permanently resulting laying off highly skilled manpower, in addition to huge burden on government exchequer, to import urea to meet the urea shortfall.