Employees and officers of Fertilizers and Chemicals Travancore have appealed to Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and Leader of Opposition V.S. Achuthanandan to intervene with the Union government in reviving FACT even as sources said here that a serious shortage of funds was holding up the expected long-term gas purchase agreement between the fertilizer company and GAIL Gas.
In the appeal sent to the two leaders on Monday, the trade unions under the aegis of the Save FACT Action Committee said FACT should be an agenda when they meet the Prime Minister in Delhi.
A spokesman for the action committee said that one of the pending issues of great consequence was the long-term gas purchase agreement.
What was needed now was the immediate gas purchase agreement at the rate of $5.61 per mmBtu for the long term. “If the delivered price of LNG exceeds $10 mmBtu, it should be compensated as gas compensation, like the prevailing naphtha compensation”, said the appeal.
The unions also appealed for allocation of domestic natural gas for FACT at $5.61 per mmBtu “as is allocated to other fertilizer companies in the country”.
The trade unions expressed the confidence that no further financial assistance would be needed for FACT if the much-delayed Rs. 991-crore revival package was sanctioned and if natural gas was made available at a sustainable rate.
BIFR hearing
The trade unions said that the postponement of the BIFR hearing on FACT had turned into a hurdle for the fertilizer company getting financial assistance from other sources in order to use LNG now being made available at a lower rate by GAIL India. Under these circumstances, the trade unions said that the Chief Minister and the Leader of Opposition should take up the issue of FACT with the Prime Minister.
