April 20, 2012
India to explore buying fertiliser mineral assets from Belarus, Canada
In order to meet the domestic shortfall, India''s government group said that the country should look at buying fertiliser mineral assets in over 20 countries including Belarus and Canada amid depleting natural resources globally.
In view of risk and huge costs involved in acquisitions, the Group also suggested that the government should create a fund with an initial corpus of US$5 billion. India imports about six million tonnes each of potash and urea and seven million tonnes of Di-ammonium Phosphate (DAP) every year.
The need to secure various input (fertiliser) assets to ensure manufacturing and growth of the economy becomes more urgent given the limited availability of such inputs and their control by a few countries, said the Working Group set up by the Planning Commission for the 12 Five Year Plan (2012-17).
India''s Group suggested to the government to facilitate the entry of Indian firms into countries that are not able to exploit their resources optimally to explore options of ownership and sourcing of basic raw-materials like gas, rock phosphate and potash. India''s Group emphasised that the acquisition of fertiliser mineral assets abroad is "very important" considering a global scenario of depleting natural resources both energy and minerals.
India is estimated to consume 33.67 million tonnes urea, 12.41 million tonnes DAP, 4.79 million tonnes potash and 11.42 million tonnes of complex fertilisers by the end 2016-17 fiscal.