Urea plant to become operational in Tripura in 3 years

A Rs 5,000-crore urea plant at Khobal in Unakoti district, a joint venture of Tripura government, ONGC and private sector firm Chambal Fertilisers and Chemicals, would be operational by next three years, an ONGC official said today.

"The project is in the initial stage. We need to get the clearance certificate from the ministry of environment and we have also to establish that the required amount of gas would be made available by us because the project is gas based. So, I think it would take about three more years to be operational," ONGC Tripura Asset Manager V P Mahawar said.

He said, ONGC had expedited its exploration drive to gather more gas for supply to different projects.

These included the second unit of the Palatana gas based thermal project to be operation within three months at Udaipur in Gomati district, 100 MW gas-based thermal power project of NEEPCO at Monarchak in Sipahijala district, which would be operational by three months and the urea plant at Khobal in North Tripura district.

The state government, ONGC, Chambal Fertilisers and Chemicals had signed an MoU on April 9 2012 to set up the project, biggest initiative in the state so far.

ONGC had discovered huge gas reserves at Khobal near the Assam-Agartala National Highway (NH-44) in 2011.

Mahawar said, the Tripura unit of ONGC had struck gas in four wells in Trishna area of South Tripura district but about a decade ago the area was declared as a part of Trishna wildlife sanctuary as a result of which gas could not be lifted from those wells.

"We are in touch with the state and central government so that our drilling area is excluded from the sanctuary area and we could explore gas", Mahawar told reporters.