Ca Mau fertilizer product trying to be on shelf at the end of 2011

On July 30th Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai came to supervise Ca Mau Fertilizer Plant project which is about to be completed and introduce the first product to the market.

Ca Mau Fertilizer Plant project is designed with capacity of 800,000 tons of urea (ball form)/year with total investment of more than US$ 900 million.

The Plant is located in Ca Mau Gas-Electricity-Fertilizer industrial cluster in Khanh An commune, U Minh district, Ca Mau province on an area of 52ha.

It was commenced on July 2008 and is expected to be completed at the end of January 2012.

The Plant is fed with natural gas from gas fields with annual consumption of 500 million cubic meter of gas.

In the initial time, Ca Mau Fertilizer Plant project encountered many difficulties due to prolonged treatment process of soft ground, transportation hardship, scarcity of materials, labour, etc., the implementation was delayed.

With correction measures and instruction and support from the Government, local authorities, now the project’s schedule and quality is in control to catch up with the master schedule.

According to the report of project owner – Petrovietnam, the project’s EPC contract has been completed for 90.88% with 98.14% of engineering, procurement completed and 85.76% of construction work completed. At the same time, a procedure of commissioning operation of some items was introduced; and the training for operation and maintenance unit of the Plant was completed.

In the last period, the project owner and contractor commit to recovering the delayed schedule, trying to complete mechanical installation at the end of August to introduce the first fertilizer product on November 27^th.

Ca Mau Fertilizer Plant is the first entity in the country to produce cloudy urea balls with size from 2-6mm with following properties: minimum nitrogen content at 46.1%, Biuret content (impoverished substance) not higher than 0.95%.

According to Petrovietnam, results of pilot use in the Mekong River Delta region show that cloudy urea product is more advantageous than clear urea and harder to prevent it from curdling or cracking. The product has longer dissolving time in water, which save about 5% of fertilizer per each area unit.

In a site meeting, Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai stressed the deadline to put the project in operation. Therefore, project owner, contractors should further concentrate in regular shift change, prepare detailed plan for tackling difficulties in material transportation, construction equipment, manpower to improve management capacity, control the schedule to recover the delays.

Deputy Prime Minister particularly highlighted the construction organization during rainy season, controlling and protecting measures for the site to prevent recent material, equipment loss.

The project owner also needs to pay attention to commissioning operation, preparing for production and marketing, developing a plan for early financial settlement, asking for facilitation from transport and customs sector in clearance procedures to transport imported materials, equipment to the site.

Ca Mau province is requested to intensify patrol and security surrounding the site. Ministry of Construction is requested to facilitate inspection and acceptance of project quality.

PVN