Deepak Fertilisers halts $350 mn Australia project

Deepak Fertilisers and Petrochemicals Corp has put on hold a planned $350 million ammonium nitrate manufacturing project in Australia, a company executive said, citing environmental, technical and economic factors.

The project, announced last year, had faced local opposition on concerns over possible harm to nearby cuttlefish populations and did not get past the planning stage.

Deepak Fertilisers planned to set up a 300,000-tonnes a year plant to make technical ammonium nitrate (TAN), a chemical used in coal mining, near Port Bonython in the state of South Australia.

The company is exploring options to find another plant site in Australia, Chief Financial Officer Somnath Patil told Reuters over the telephone on Wednesday.

"There are other angles also" apart from the environmental issue, he said, "like techno-economic angles that we are looking at."

"As of now, there is no great progress on this front."