Domestic rating agency, ICRA in its latest report has stated that the increasing natural gas prices in recent times are likely to adversely affect domestic urea production in the financial year 2018-19. It also said that domestic gas price for the second half of FY19 is also expected to rise due to increase in global gas prices, which will result in further upward movement in pooled prices.
According to the report, with the rising share of high cost R-LNG in the gas consumption mix for the fertiliser sector, firm international spot gas prices and higher term LNG prices given the high crude oil prices; pooled price for the fertiliser sector is expected to remain elevated in the near term. It also said that rising gas prices will lead to higher subsidy receivables for the urea players, leading to higher working capital borrowings and associated interest costs leading to negative impact on profitability. However, it noted that the impact will be largely offset by the energy savings for units which are energy efficient vis-a-vis their pre-set norms as energy savings will be reimbursed at higher energy costs.
Rating agency further said that with rising gas prices and subdued international urea prices, the production beyond re-assessed capacity (RAC) for high energy consumption domestic urea units is expected to remain unviable. It also said that while the contribution margin for the energy efficient players is expected to decline, leading to lower profitability from production beyond RAC. It pointed out that as a result, urea production may decline in FY19 unless the department of fertiliser undertakes measures to keep production beyond RAC viable. It added that the delay in fixed cost reimbursement by the government is expected to weaken the profitability of urea units.
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