BLUE STAR-Reduced Margins

GUJARAT NARMADA VALLEY FERTILIZERS COMPANY (GNFC) is going ahead with the setting up of 500 tpd phosphoric acid project at Jebel Ali Free Trade Zone, UAE. A financial tie-up is being worked out. Agreements with Lurgi of West Germany have been signed by the joint venture company, Emirates Narmada Industries. The Company has entered into .a licence agreement with BP Chemicals of UK for a Rs 88 crore acetic acid project with a capacity of 40,000 tpa. It has also executed agreements with Linde as a process licensor. Mitsui Engineering and Shipbuilding Company, Japan will be the foreign engineering contractor. M and G Consultants will be the Indian engineering contractor. Satisfactory progress has been made on the Rs 80 crore methanol expansion project which is expected to be commissioned by the second- half of 1990. Work on the prestigious ammonium nitrophosphate, calcium ammonium nitrate and concentrated nitric acid projects is proceeding well. Most of the equipment of the concentrated nitric acid plant has been received. Efforts are being made to commission this plant by March, 1989. The target is to complete the ammonium nitrophosphate and calcium ammonium nitrate plants by the end of 1989. Production will commence within three months thereafter. Work on the second phase of the captive power plant is in full swing. The plant is expected to be commissioned in the first quarter of 1989. The methyl formate section of the formic acid project was commissioned in April 1988. The erection of balance equipment is in progress and production of formic acid will commence before March 1989.