Agartala, Jan 24 (IANS) State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) will set up a Rs.5,000 crore, gas-based fertilizer plant in Tripura to meet the growing shortage of urea, the most commonly used soil manure in the northeastern region.

“ONGC has already initiated the process to set up the natural gas-based urea project in northern Tripura adjoining Assam,” a senior company official told IANS here Tuesday.

He said the plant would be a joint venture with the Tripura government and a fertilizer company.

The eight, predominantly agrarian, northeastern states have been facing an acute shortage of urea for the past many years. A large quantity of the fertilizer supplied from other parts of India to meet the demand get smuggled out to Bangladesh.

ONGC has already sought “expression of interest” from companies with relevant experience and track record to be a partner in the proposed project.

The Maharatna company has found huge deposits of natural gas at its Khubal structure, 145 km northeast of Agartala along the Assam-Agartala national highway (NH-44). Gas from the wells there would be supplied to the proposed plant.

ONGC owns significant natural gas reserves in Tripura. Since 1972, it has drilled 150 wells in Tripura, of which 74 wells are yielding gas.

However, these reserves harve not been sufficiently commercially exploited due to low industrial demand in the region.

The company official said Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar had earlier requested the union ministry of chemicals and fertilizers and ONGC to explore the possibilities of setting up of the fertilizer plant, using the untapped natural gas.

“Responding to the Tripura government’s request, ONGC has internally assessed that the urea unit can be set up in Tripura with the natural gas the company has abundantly found in the state,” said the official.

Sudhir Vasudeva, ONGC chairman-cum-managing director, accompanied by top company officials visited Tripura recently to personally study the feasibility of the proposed plant.

Vasudeva had then said that ONGC had asked government-owned Projects and Development India Limited to conduct a detailed study on setting up the fertilizer plant and to prepare a detail project report.

The proposed fertilizer plant will be the first such ONGC project in India.

ONGC is now commissioning its Rs.5,000 crore, 726 MW thermal power plant in the northeastern region at southern Tripura’s Palatana, 60 km from Agartala. It is the company’s first mega commercial project which would start generating power by May this year.