Italian firm helping CUFL to conduct repairs

CHITTAGONG, Jul 22: Production in the Chittagong Urea Fertiliser Ltd will remain halted for about four months due to repairing of the reactor of the plant.
Officials at the CUFL said that the repair work started on July 20. Most of the equipments have reached the factory while a few others are in the pipeline.
The plant required this major overhauling after 29 years since its installation in 1986 as the titanium gasket in the reactor of the urea plant has been damaged due to unstable pressure of gas, a senior official of the CUFL said.
Axo Welding Company of Italy has been given the task of repair work of the reactor of the plant at the cost of Tk. 200 million (Tk. 20 crore) through international bidding. It will take at least 105 days to complete the repair work.
Once the reactor is repaired, production of urea fertiliser in the factory will resume subjected to availability of natural gas, raw materials for urea production.  
The CUFL, a state-owned enterprise, faced shutdowns several times in the past due to frequent fluctuation in the pressure of gas from the Bakhrabad Gas Systems Ltd (BGSL) and Karnaphuli Gas Distribution Co Ltd (KGDCL).
The CUFL authority said that that the plant not only had faced production shortfall, but also experienced major damage due to fluctuation in pressure, destroying its delicate and precious machinery.
"The gas crisis is a bane for us, but what is more dreadful is that frequent fluctuation in the pressure of gas collapsed the total machinery system in the plant," said the official favouring not to be named.
He said that the occasional failure of the reactor of the CUFL featured in the year 2008. Production remained suspended for long 15 days in January-February 2010 as the titanium gasket in the reactor had been damaged.
The then industries secretary and the senior BCIC (Bangladesh Chemical Industries Corporation) officials had visited the factory at that time and they had a meeting with the energy secretary and other concerned officials on the issue but with no results.
Initially, the authority tried to repair the gasket of the reactor in consultation with the engineers and experts from Toyo Engineering Corporation and Kube Steels Ltd of Japan but failed.
Later, the extra titanium gasket that was preserved with the reactor during construction of the CUFL by Toyo Engineering engineers was replaced as advised by Japanese engineers.
Through temporary repair work, the authority resumed partial production in the factory. The damage in the reactor proved fatal as the authority had to suspend production due to lack of required gas over the last four years.
Production at the CUFL came down to almost half of its production capacity over the few years as the natural gas, its prime raw material for production of ammonia and from ammonia to urea, supplied by the KGDCL was far below the required volume of 49 million cubic feet (mmcf) a day.
When contacted, managing director of the CUFL Engineer Md Abu Taher Bhuiyan declined to speak about it without the BCIC chairman's permission.
The CUFL was installed in the early '80s and went into commercial production in early 1987. The industry was set up on a vast area of land at Anwara, the south bank of the Karnaphuli River at the cost of Tk 50 billion (Tk. 5,000 crore) with a monthly production capacity of 42,000 metric tons of urea fertiliser and is contributing a lot to the agriculture production in the country.
    pankajdastider@gmail.com