ACI Formulations plans to set up a sulphur manufacturing plant, first of its kind in the country, aiming to be the leader in the import-dominated market.
The company, a subsidiary of Advanced Chemical Industries (ACI), estimates an annual average turnover of Tk 292 million from the sales of sulphur, which is used in agriculture as a fungicide to kill or inhibit fungi or fungal spores.
Of the turnover, the ACI Formulations also targets an average profit after tax of Tk 54 million, the company officials said.
The board of directors of the company has recently approved the project, the cost of which has been estimated at Tk 135 million with a payback period of slightly over three years.
“The work is going on and hope we can go for commercial production between March and June,” said a senior official of ACI. “Our target is to introduce our manufactured product from next July-September crop season,” he said.
The new plant will manufacture Sulphur 80 WDG (wetting dispersible granules).
Sulphur 80 WDG is a composition of 80 percent sulphur and the rest 20 percent are sodium, China clay, wetting and striking or dispersible agents.
Sulphur is an element that takes part in the biology of a plant. It improves vegetation besides taking part in the forming of proteins, vitamins and enzymes. It encourages the action of nitrogen inside any plant. It also activates the function of chlorophyll and improves the setting of flower.
The annual production capacity of Sulphur 80 WDG will be 4,000 tonnes on the new factory's full-swing operation, according to the official.
“We will import rock sulphur in powder form, the key raw material for Sulphur 80 WDG, from Dubai and manufacture a finished product here. This will be a more value added item than imported ones,” he said.
According to the agri-business industry people, the present market size for sulphur is estimated to be around 8,500 tonnes a year.
In 2007, some 7,000 tonnes of sulphur were imported mainly from India and China. Of the total import, Syngenta Bangladesh imported around 3,000 tonnes of sulphur, which is around 44 percent of the total market, while ACI imported 1,000 tonnes sulphur.
The sulphur market in Bangladesh is growing at an average rate of 20 percent per year.
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