"Normally farmers will begin planting in rainy season."
Palembang (ANTARA News) - State-owned fertilizer firm PT Pupuk Sriwijaya (Pusri) has up to March this year channeled 217,122 tons of subsidized urea fertilizer to farmers in nine provinces, its spokesman said.

Pusri Public Relations Manager Sulfa Ghani said here on Monday that Palembang-based Pusri channeled the fertilizer to farmers under its responsibilities in the nine provinces.

The nine provinces are Lampung, Jambi, Bengkulu, Bangka Belitung, Central Java, Banten, Jakarta, and Yogyakarta, Sulfa said.

For South Sumatra province Pusri has distributed 13,680 tons of subsidized urea fertilizer to farmers so far this year.

The fertilizer is distributed in 15 regencies in the province, Sulfa Ghani, the chief spokesman of the state fertilizer company said.

Farmers are expected to need more supply of subsidized fertilizer in the next several months as the planting season has just taken place in the province, Sulfa said.

"Normally farmers will begin planting in rainy season," he said.

PT Pupuk Sriwidjaja has made available stocks in farm production centers to be ready for distribution, he added.

The company with its four factories, has more than enough capacity to meet fertilizer requirement in the province, he said.

In the meantime, Sulfa said, Pusri will also revitalize its factories this year.

A ground breaking ceremony will take place on March 27 to mark the start of work for the revitalization, he said recently.

Revitalization will begin with Pusri II B, one of four factories of the company producing mainly urea fertilizer, company`s chief spokesman Sulfa Ghani said here on Monday.

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 already signed the contract for the renovation of the factory on 14 December 2012.

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.
(Uu.A014/B003)

Editor: Priyambodo RH
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