Pusri Prepares 155 Thousand Tons Of Fertilizer Stock

Palembang, S Sumatra, April 15 (Antara) - Fertilizer firm PT Pupuk Sriwidjaya (Pusri) Palembang has prepared 155,400 tons of urea fertilizer stock in South Sumatra`s agricultural production centers, a manager of the company said. "The fertilizer stock is prepared to meet the need for the commodity of farmers in South Sumatra and in eight other provinces in Indonesia," PT Pupuk Sriwidjaja`s Manager for Public Relations Sulfa Ganie said here on Monday. Sulfa said the company continued to make efforts to prepare fertilizer stock for the nine provinces, namely South Sujatra, Lampung, Jambi, Bengkulu, Bangka Belitung, Central Java, Banten, Jakarta, and Yogyakata. He said that his company guaranteed fertilizer stock supply for farmers in the nine provinces. Farmers, therefore, need not worry about fertilizer scarcities in the planting seasons this year. The company spokesman said that so far his company had faced no difficulties in fertilizer production and distribution. He said that the production activities of the four factories owned by PT Pupuk Sriwidjaja were running well even though the development of one of its factories, newly revitalized Pustri II-B factory was still undergoing. The ground breaking ceremony for the development of Pusri II-B took place last month, marking the start of work for the revitalization, he said recently. Revitalization began with Pusri II B, one of four factories of the company producing mainly urea fertilizer, company`s chief spokesman Sulfa Ghani. PT Pusri with four factories has an annual installed production capacity of 2,262 million tons of urea fertilizer, but production has always fallen short of the capacity over the past several year. The factories are no longer efficient for being too old, Sulfa Ghani said, adding the factories have been 35 years old on the average. "All factories is in bad condition. Ideally, a fertilizer factory is not more than 20 years in age," he said. Pusri I-B, which was built in 1994, is the only one not exceeding the age of 20 years, he said. In order to improve the efficiency and increase productivity, revitalization will be made by phases to start with Pusri II B the oldest of all, he said. Pusri II B, which was built in 1974, is the oldest urea fertilizer factory in the world, he added. PT Pusri Palembang and a consortium of contractors made up of PT Rekayasa Industri and Toyo Engineering Corporation cooperated for the renovation of the factory. The renovation contract is worth around Rp7.4 trillion. The ammonia production facility will have a production capacity of 2,000 tons per day or 660,000 tons per year and the capacity of the urea plant is 2,750 tons per day or 907,500 tons per year. Pusri II-B with the new technology would be more efficient in gas consumption using 31.49 MMBTU of gas and 21.18 MMBTU of ammonia for a ton of urea fertilizer. It will also be environmentally friendlier. The renovation is expected to be completed in 34 months, therefore, it will start operation in December 2015 if construction runs as scheduled, Sulfa Ghani said.