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Dhaka Friday,  Mar 29, 2024

Ammonia Crisis clogs Industrial Production

EB Report

The Zamuna fertilizer factory of Tarakandi, Jamalpur has stopped selling ammonia gas for the last one month, which has created a severe crisis of ammonia gas in the dependent industries.

The price of the ammonia cylinder has risen up to a few folds in the last one month for the crisis. Meanwhile, Zamuna fertilizer also had to incur a loss of more than 1 crore taka. The unsold ammonia that is being deposited in the last month may pollute the environment heavily once it is diffused.

The managing director of Zamuna fertilizer, Javed Khan said that, selling ammonia is not the prime objective of this factory. Rather, it produces urea fertilizer and ammonia is a sort of byproduct or residual type thing, which may subject to be sold off.

The factory sources claimed that, it was established on 1991 and it is now producing around 750 metric tons of urea fertilizer each day. The facility needs ammonia gas to produce urea from it; in fact ammonia is the main raw material for producing urea at there. The facility produces more ammonia that it needs to produce urea, which leaves behind some ammonia unused. Earlier, the unused ammonia was diffused to the air directly, which polluted the environment. However, the factory authority stopped leaking their residual ammonia into the air after a strike from the affected locals and started selling them off from 2014.

According to the acts of BCIC, the factory authority appointed some 142 dealers to sell off the ammonia. The authority was bound to fill the cylinders of the dealers who actually return the verified and empty cylinders. The dealers buy each cylinder of ammonia gas for a price of 1941 taka and usually sell them at 5 thousand taka for per cylinder.

The ammonia is used in the gas iron factories, color, spinning mill, cold storage, glass factory, pharmaceutical company, AC and other relevant industries.

Earlier, on 21st August of this year Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) has conducted a drive at the Zamuna fertilizer factory to determine any possible corruption. The team of ACC has seized 99 cylinders of ammonia to find if they are authentic. After that drive the factory authority has stopped selling ammonia gas which created a huge crisis in the market of ammonia gas.

Shahidul Islam, the senior officer of Dhaka Samah Razer industries along with some other officials from different industries have claimed the same thing that, the production of their respective factories is about to be stopped due to the crisis of ammonia. Currently, the industry owners have to buy a cylinder of ammonia for even 14 thousand taka and still there is no assurance that they will get their desired amount of gas on demand.

According to the reliable sources from the fertilizer factory, it used to sell off some 170 cylinders of ammonia each day worth 3 lac and 30 lacs taka.

Regarding this matter, Mahbubur Rahman, the sub-manager of the Zamuna fertilizer factory said that, the factory authority will revise the system and policy of selling off the ammonia gas and will take a decision soon. However, he couldn’t assure the date from when the sale of ammonia will start again.

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