Urea retail price set to surge for farmers: Emkay

Emkay Global Financial Services has come out with its report on fertilizer space.

• Recent media reports suggest that the Centre is likely to undertake hike in urea retail prices by 40% to Rs 7430/mt. Formal cabinet note is likely to be circulated next week
• Widening gap between urea & decontrolled fert prices post NBS has accelerated urea consumption (+9% ytd) and adversely affected complex fertiliser consumption (-4%)
• Increase in urea retail prices will lower the subsidy outflow of the govt while benefit to companies will only be restricted to lower working capital requirement
• Complex fertiliser players (Coromandel, Zuari) to benefit from higher complex fertiliser demand while urea players (Chambal fertiliser) will benefit from lower working capital

Government proposes to increase urea retail prices by 40%: Recent media reports suggest that the Centre plans to raise prices of urea by 40% to Rs 7430/mt. Urea prices were last revised in April 2010 by 10% to Rs 5310/mt from Rs 4830/mt earlier. While the introduction of NBS in April 2010 has witnessed rapid increase in prices of decontrolled fertilizers (DAP prices increased from Rs 9350/ mt to Rs 19,000 / mt), prices of urea have remained constant throughout. News reports suggest that the proposal is being formulated and a formal cabinet note is expected to be circulated next week.

The move will help the government to reduce subsidy by Rs 60 bn: Government has witnessed sharp increase in fertiliser subsidy for FY12 which is expected to increase up to Rs 900 bn (source

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