Bhubaneswar, Sept. 7: A global tender was floated today to revive the Fertiliser Corporation of India’s Talcher unit. The Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilisers Limited released a tender inviting bids for setting up the coal gasification and gas purification plant at Talcher.

The Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilisers Limited and Coal India Limited have joined hands to set up an integrated coal gasification-based ammonia-urea complex along with a nitric acid and ammonium nitrate complex at Fertiliser Corporation of India’s Talcher site. Union minister of state chemicals and fertilisers Srikant Jena said the Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction has given a go-ahead for revival of closed urea units of the corporation.

“The Talcher unit in Odisha shall be revived on a fast-track basis and the assets shall be handed over to the consortium of Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilisers Limited and Coal India Limited on nomination basis,” he said. Bids have been invited for setting up the plant on a build-own-operate basis. Coal India will supply about 5.5 million tonnes of raw coal to the proposed consortium. The ammonia-urea project will depend on ammonia synthesis gas from the coal gasification plant.

“The revival of the Talcher unit will bring an investment of about Rs 8,000 crore to Odisha,” Jena said.

The capacity of urea plant will be around 12.7 lakh tonnes per annum, whereas that of the nitric acid plant will be around 2.8 lakh tonnes per annum. The ammonium nitrate plant will have a capacity of 3.3 lakh tonnes per annum.

, adding that the revival process of the three units shall also help the country to bridge the gap between demand and domestic production of urea.

The plant started its production in 1980 and used to produce 600 to 700 metric tonnes of urea. In the 90s the plant had incurred heavy losses and the accumulated loss was estimated to be nearly Rs 1000 crores. The plant was closed down in April, 1999.

The union minister, who belongs to Odisha, Jena had moved the proposal for the revival of the plant. Chief Minister, Naveen Patnaik too had written to Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh urging him to revive the Talcher Plant.

Patnaik had assured the Prime Minister that the state government would provide all support for the revival of the plant.

Sources in the ministry of chemicals and fertilsers said the demand– production gap for urea in the country was projected at around 9 million tonne during the current plan period, which is likely to go up further by at an average rate of 2-3 percent per annum. The revival of closed fetiliser unit was expected to bridge the gap and reduce import dependence of the country.

As there is no fertilizer units in Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Odisha and West Bengal, the revival of closed unit will ensure availability of fertilizers to the consumption centres contributing to agricultural development in these areas.