Fertiliser stocks surge up to 12% in early trade

NEW DELHI: Fertiliser stocks climbed up to 10 per cent on Wednesday on hopes of robust demand of fertilisers during the first half of FY18.

Shares of Rashtriya Chemicals & Fertilizers were trading 11.28 per cent up at Rs 98.15 around 9.30 am (IST). It ended the day 10.10 per cent higher at Rs 97 on BSE. It was followed by Nagarjuna Fertilizers (up 9.75 per cent), Madras Fertilizers (up 6.27 per cent), Chambal Fertilisers (up 4.59 per cent) and Zuari Global (2.36 per cent).

According to reports, demand for fertilisers during the first half of 2017-18 is likely to witness good recovery due to satisfactory progress shown by monsoon leading to growth in Kharif sowing.

“Given the subdued raw material prices and satisfactory progress of monsoon, urea players should see stable profitability while non-urea players will see their moderation in profits due to the inverted duty structure under GST in FY18,” ICRA Corporate Ratings said.

Chambal Fertilisers and Chemicals will commission its brown-field project in Kota, Rajasthan by January 2019, Parliament was informed on August 1.

The company has proposed to establish a brown-field project at Gadepan in Kota with a capacity to produce 1.34 million tonnes fertilisers per annum, Minister of State for Chemicals and Fertilisers, Mansukh L Mandaviya said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha.