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Fertiliser companies have purchased additional natural gas from the spot market to ramp up urea production at their plants, which are operating well below capacity due to a fuel shortage amid the West Asia crisis, a senior government official said on Thursday. After the procurement of additional natural gas, urea plants are expected to operate at 78-80 per cent capacity compared to 62 per cent currently. India produced 306.67 lakh tonnes of urea in 2024-25 and imported 56.47 lakh tonnes of the nutrient to meet the domestic demand. The country has imported 98 lakh tonnes of urea in the first eleven months of this fiscal. Fertiliser plants in the country require about 52 million metric standard cubic metres per day (MMSCMD) of natural gas to operate at full capacity, but were receiving only around 32 MMSCMD, meeting barely 62 per cent of their requirement, resulting in a significant shortfall in urea output, the official told PTI. To address this, a spot auction was conducted by the
As fresh attacks on West Asian gas hubs triggered fresh concerns, India on Thursday said such strikes are "unacceptable and need to cease". New Delhi described the attacks as "deeply disturbing" and that they only serve to further destabilise an already uncertain energy scenario globally. Iran targeted several energy infrastructure in West Asia including Qatar's LNG (liquefied natural gas) hub of Ras Laffan in retaliation to Israel's strikes on Iran's South Pars gas fields. "India had previously called for the avoidance of targeting civilian infrastructure, including energy infrastructure, across the region," External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said. "The recent attacks against energy installations in different locations across this region are therefore deeply disturbing and only serve to further destabilise an already uncertain energy scenario for the whole world," he said. "Such attacks are unacceptable and need to cease," Jaiswal said.