PT Pupuk Indonesia (Persero) claims to be able to meet the need for subsidized fertilizer production. This is supported by the company's production capacity of 13.9 million tons. Pupuk Indonesia SVP Corporate Secretary Wijaya Laksamana said, the total production capacity includes 8.5 million tons of Urea fertilizer, 3.5 million tons of nitrogen, phosphate and potassium (NPK) fertilizers, as well as the rest of other types of fertilizers. "Our production capacity is sufficient to meet the need for subsidized fertilizers," he said when met at the Ministry of BUMN, Jakarta, Monday (13/3/2023). He explained, from the total production capacity, Pupuk Indonesia produced subsidized fertilizer of 4.7 million tons of Urea and 3.2 million tons of NPK.
The rest, namely 3.8 million tons of Urea fertilizer and 0.3 million tons of NPK fertilizer, are for commercial sale. Also read: Ahead of Ramadan, Petrokimia Gresik Prepares Stock of 294,466 Tons of Subsidized Fertilizers Like Urea, the rest is sold commercially to retail farmers, palm oil companies, to industry. Urea itself not only functions as a fertilizer, but is also often used industrially as wood glue. "We have to do business too, so we sell the rest at commercial prices," said Wijaya. Furthermore, he admitted, specifically the production of NPK is indeed quite challenging at this time. This is because some of the imported raw materials have been disrupted due to the war between Russia and Ukraine. Also read: Farmers Complain about Expensive and Difficult Subsidized Fertilizers, Ministry of Agriculture: Must be Registered at Simluhtan. He explained that one of the NPK contents, nitrogen, comes from Urea, a material that can be met by domestic production.
However, in contrast to the other two ingredients, namely potassium and phosphorus which are phosphate compounds, the amount is small in the country so it must be met from imports. The need for phosphorus itself is met through imports from Middle Eastern countries and China. Meanwhile, potassium is usually imported from Russia and Belarus. "During the war yesterday, a third of the world's needs were lost. So automatically the price was crazy. Normally it would be around US$300-400 per ton, but yesterday it could reach US$1,200 per ton, an increase of 2-3 times," said he. Also read: Ombudsman Calls Subsidized Fertilizer Stock Abundant in Banyuasin Regency Despite facing the challenge of increasingly expensive fertilizer production materials due to disrupted supply chains globally, Wijaya ensures that subsidized fertilizer production remains safe until the end of the year. "We make sure that the need for raw materials until the end of this year can be said to be relatively safe, it is not affected by the war," he concluded.
