November 26, 2018 (MLN): Urea offtake during October, 2018 was 465 thousand tonnes which recorded an increase of 23.9 per cent over October, 2017, when the offtake was 375 thousand tonnes, shows official data released by National Fertilizer Development Centre (NFDC).
Based on month-on-month comparison, the total Urea off-takes declined by 4% due to hoarding inventory last month on expectation of urea price hike.
Most of the urea sales during the month, were made in the province of Punjab (318 thousand tonnes, up by 41%, YoY) whereas Baluchistan had the lowest demand for it (only 12 thousand tonnes, down by 4%, YoY).
Urea demand in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa went up by 53% over the October 2017, while that in Sindh dropped by 8%.
During Oct-18, FATIMA off-take improved by 170% MoM while FFC, EFERT and FFBL declined by 8%, 15%, and 41% respectively. This decline in sales is attributed to hoarded inventories in hopes of a price hike for urea.
A year-on-year analysis on the other hand shows that off-take for FFC, EFERT, & FATIMA increased by 10%, 14%, and 913% respectively.
The total production of urea in October 2018 amounted to 559 thousand tonnes. Combined with previous month’s leftover of 114.6 thousand tonnes, the total quantity of urea available for use was 673.7 thousand tonnes.
However, since this month’s demand was for 465 thousand tonnes, the remaining amount will be available for use at a later date.
