First shipment of 36,000 tons of urea arrived at Port Qasim on Saturday. "TCP had awarded tender for import of 100,000 metric tons (ten percent plus minus) urea to the lowest bidder Gavilon Fertiliser LLC USA at a price of $408.68 per ton and after the deposit of five percent performance guarantee, the letter of credit for the import of 108,000 tons of urea was opened by TCP in second week of February," sources said.
As per schedule, the first ship namely 'MV Split', carrying about 36,000 tons of urea reached Karachi on Saturday morning. It was loaded and sailed from 'Shuaiba Port' of Kuwait a few days back. Unloading of the commodity has started.
The successful bidder has assured to ship complete quantity by March 2, 2011 and according to schedule provided by shipper to TCP, another consignment of urea is scheduled to arrive on March 1, 2011 with 31,000 tons, and third consignment is expected on March 2, 2011 with 41,000 tons of urea, sources added.
In addition to this tender, SABIC has also agreed to supply 60,000 tons urea and an agreement has already been signed between TCP and SABIC. Supply from Saudi Arabia is also expected to start in the first week of March 2011, officials said. The distribution, transportation and bagging of Urea will be handled by National Fertiliser Marketing Limited (NFML) to provide urea to farmers in time to meet their Rabi requirement.