Although cumulative production of urea during April-December 1999 was higher than the production in the corresponding period in the previous year, cumulative availability was slightly lower.

Production of urea during April-December 1999 was 83.04 lakh tonne against the target of 81.46 lakh tonne - an improvement over production during the same period in the previous year at 78.42 lakh tonne, according to an official release.

Phosphate production also netted a higher growth during April-December 1999 over the previous year by recording a production of 25.10 lakh tonne against 23.33 lakh tonne. The target for phosphate production was 24.83 lakh tonne.Capacity utilisation in December was 112.2 per cent for nitrogen and 99.2 per cent for phosphate.

A total of 20.04 lakh tonne of urea was despatched in December against the target of 18.50 lakh tonne. Cumulative availability of urea by the end of December was 73.19 lakh tonne which constituted 64 per cent of the estimated requirement of 114.59 lakh tonne for the entire season. During the corresponding period of 1998, urea availability was higher at 76.04 lakh tonne despite lower production.

Cumulative availability of di-ammounium phosphate (DAP) till December 1999 at 32.25 lakh tonne, however, was higher by 28 per cent compared to the availability of 25.15 lakh tonne of DAP during the corresponding period in the previous year. Against this, the sales up to December 15 1999 was 19.69 lakh tonne recording a 5.5 per cent increase over sales in the corresponding period.

Availability of muriate of potash (MOP) during April-December 1999 was 9.36 lakh tonne. MOP sales during the period at 4.55 lakh tonne was lower than sales in the corresponding period of 1998 at 4.95 lakh tonne.

During the month under review, about 1.56 lakh tonne of imported DAP and 1.39 lakh tonne of imported urea is reported to have been delivered.