Fert subsidies may ease as urea import tenders cool

India’s fertilizer subsidy burden could ease after the government’s latest tender to import 1.7 million tonnes (mt) of urea drew sharply lower landed price bids, relieving pressure on public finances strained by supply disruptions from the West Asia war.

- Vijay C. Roy

The urea import tender by National Fertilizers Ltd (NFL) received landed price (cost-plus-freight) quotes in a range of $444.9-449.3 per tonne, two people aware of the development said. This is less than half the levels seen in an earlier procurement, which had drawn bids of $935-959 per tonne, with industry executives attributing the drop to China easing export curbs.

“State-run National Fertilizers Ltd received the lowest bids from Aditya Birla Global Trading, which quoted $444.9 per tonne for around 500,000 tonnes earmarked for deliveries in India’s east coast, while Ameropa Asia emerged as the lowest bidder for the deliveries in the west coast, offering $449.3 per tonne for supplies of about 234,000 tonnes," the first of the two persons cited earlier said, both speaking on condition of anonymity. "We have secured around 734,000 tonnes supplies from the two bidders and the rest of the quantity will be decided soon," said the person.

Queries emailed to NFL remained unanswered until press time.

Mint reported on Tuesday that the department of fertiers has sought a doubling of fertilizer subsidy to {3.5 trillion for FY27 to offset mounting losses of manufacturers due to subsidized sales even as their costs soar due to the West Asia war-induced disruptions.