The urea off-take during February registered a massive decline of 19 percent standing at 419k tons during the month in review, said the market observers Friday. The urea availability on the other hand declined by 23 percent on MoM basis to 590k tons during last month, said InvestCap analyst Abdul Azeem. Overall, he said, urea production declined by 10 percent MoM to 306k tons while the imports were at 27.6k tones levels. The FFC’s off-take declined by 15 percent to 179k tones (+51 percent YoY in 2MCY13) similarly the Engro’s off-take declined by 31 percent to 84k tones (+210 percent YoY). However, FATIMA’s off-take stepped up by a massive 106 percent to 30k tones. During Jan-Feb13 total urea off-take stood at 936k tons compared to 770k tons during the same period last year, showing an increase of 22 percent. Of the total, the off-take of imported urea stood at 282k tones during 2MCY13 contributing 30 percent.
During Feb-13, off-take of DAP posted a decline of 57 percent to 76.5k tons while during 2MCY13 the product’s off-take stood at 76.5k tones, showing a huge increase of 88 percent. Similarly, the production of DAP jumped by a gigantic 133 percent to 89.8k tons. However, as far as overall DAP availability is concerned, the latter declined by 11 percent to 230k tones during Feb-13.
During Feb-13, Abdul Azeem said, the retail prices of urea stood at Rs 1,745 per bag showing an increase of 1.3 percent, while the retail prices of DAP declined by 0.8 percent to Rs 3,925 per bag.
While the DAP prices mostly move in line with international prices, the price of urea is expected to remain stable in the near future.
As the gas available from the exploration companies would be on higher rate as compared to gas available from SNGPL network therefore leaving no room to reduce prices in the present high cost of production scenario.
