State-owned Chittagong Urea Fertilizer Limited (CUFL) has resumed urea production after being shut for 27 days by a mechanical fault.
Production restarted at the factory at around 3am on Friday (13 November), Uttam Chowdhury, general manager (GM) of CUFL’s production department, confirmed.
According to factory sources, urea production stopped on the night of 17 October after a mechanical fault.
Before that, the factory had been shut for six months because of a gas shortage. Production started again on 15 September once gas supply returned to normal, but within 48 hours of restarting it stopped again because of a mechanical fault.
About 12 days later the fault was repaired and the factory restarted towards the end of September.
Before long, however, production stopped again because of mechanical problems. After the latest 27-day shutdown, production began on Friday night.
CUFL sources said the shutdown costs the factory more than Tk 3 crore a day. Under normal conditions it can produce about 500 tonnes of ammonia and 1,200 tonnes of urea a day.
The sources also said the factory, set up about 40 years ago, often suffers mechanical faults of various kinds. As a result, production sometimes stops suddenly even when gas supply is normal, and once it stops, finding and repairing the fault and getting back into production takes a long time. The factory’s production capacity has also fallen compared with the past.
Anwarul Azim Sabuj, joint secretary of the Bangladesh Chemical Workers Federation, said the factory’s restart after overcoming its technical faults had brought relief and enthusiasm back among officers, employees and workers. If an uninterrupted gas supply can be ensured, the factory can be kept running at full capacity, he said.
“The factory is about 40 years old. There is no guarantee when it will stop,” said Uttam Chowdhury, GM of CUFL’s production department. “The factory has some mechanical problems, and we are trying to solve them step by step. If we can produce properly, it will be possible to meet this fiscal year’s target.”
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report