FACT targets Rs 60 crore net profit in 2008-09

Kochi, Oct 31 (UNI) After several years in the red, the public sector Fertilisers and Chemicals Travancore (FACT) has made a remarkable turnaround and is targeting a net profit of Rs 50 crore to Rs 60 crore in 2008-09, its CMD George Sleeba said today.

Addressing a press conference after a meeting of the Board of Directors here, Mr Sleeba said during the first six months of FY '08-09, the Kochi-based PSU had made a net profit of Rs 19.28 crore as compared to a loss of Rs 92.1 crore during the corresponding period last year.

The turnaround was made despite odds like acute shortage of rock phosphate and phosphoric acid alongwith shooting prices of raw materials, power cuts and power tariff hike.

Howewver, the company still faced a cumulative loss of Rs 395 crore.

During April-September, 2008, FACT could achieve a sales turnover of Rs 1,024 crore as against Rs 611 crore during the same period last year.

It is planning to improve the production of Factamfos and Ammonium Sulphate during the current half of the fiscal and resume production of Caprolactam.

The overall production of fertilisers had been good so far with 216,000 tonnes of Factamfos and 44,500 tonnes of Ammonium Sulphate.

Totally, the company was targeting a production of 580,000 tonnes this year, he added.

The company was also planning to import 100,000 tonnes of Urea and 50,000 tonnes of Muriate of Potash (MOP). It had already imported about 65,000 tonnes of these products so far.

Talking about the Board of Directors meeting here, he said it had been decided to get an advance payment of Rs 200 crore from Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka for supply of fertilisers. This would help augment the working capital of the company.

The FACT-RCF joint venture, Building Products Ltd., to manufacture load bearing gypsum panels was expected to start production by August-September next year, he added.

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