Public sector unit Fertilisers and Chemicals Travancore (FACT) will invest Rs. 967 crore to plough up at least an additional Rs. 500-crore annual turnover from the next fiscal. This amount of Rs. 967 crore had been from an asset sale to the state government.

Kerala government had bought nearly 482 acre of surplus land from the fertiliser firm to set up its petrochemical park in the country this week.

“Early last week, KIIFB (Kerala Industrial Infrastructure Board) had transferred the money for buying the land from Central PSU, so that the purchase process is complete,” Santhosh Koshy, managing director, Kinfra (Kerala Infrastructure Development Corporation) told FE.

Trade unions in FACT are buoyed that wage-hike parleys have been slated to be on from January. The company is expected to hire about 200 people, including management trainees.

Since the money from the land sale is at hand, FACT would be able to get the commercial production of caprolactam going from May 2020, as scheduled, chairman and managing director Kishore Rungta has informed the trade union leaders.

Caprolatam plant has been idling for the past six years and reviving this alone is estimated to fetch Rs. 500-crore annual turnover, right from the next fiscal. FACT’s expansion plans also include jacking up the capacity of Factamfos (ammonium phosphate sulphate) and ammonium sulphate to 10 lakh million tonne. Currently, FACT produces 6.4 lakh MT Factamfos and 2.2 lakh MT ammonium sulphate.

The PSU counts on posting Rs. 2,400 crore in the current fiscal. In the next fiscal, following the capacity expansion and diversification, the turnover is expected to surge close to Rs. 3,000 crore. In the last fiscal, FACT had posted Rs. 2,100-crore turnover. Net profit in 2018-2019 was Rs. 164 crore. This is expected to double in the current fiscal.

FACT top brass has informed the trade union leaders that the storage capacity for ammonia, sulphuric acid and phosphoric acid will be enhanced to 10,000 tonne, besides procuring a barge to improve the transportation logistics.