December 26 2001, 12:45 UNIAN

Ukrainian farmers purchased 1,5 times more mineral fertilizers during 11 months this year over the same time last year - Ryzhouk

Ukrainian farmers purchased 1,5 times more mineral fertilizers during 11 months this year over the same time last year, said Serhiy Ryzhouk, the State Secretary of the Ministry of Ukraine's Agrarian Policy to the meeting on issues of provision of farmers with mineral fertilizers for 2002 crop which took place Dec. 25 at the Ministry of Agrarian Policy.

According to him, the volume of mineral fertilizers already purchased by farmers made up about 620,000 MT in view of active substance over 410,000 MT over the same time last year.

It is projected that next year farmers will buy at least 1 mn. MT of mineral fertilizers in view of active substance. To make this happen, in the opinion of Ryzhouk, it is necessary to lower production cost of fertilizers produced locally in Ukraine by virtue of using Ukrainian natural gas while producing the latter. Ukrainian gas costs less (about 70% of production cost of a number of fertilizers, especially nitrogen fertilizers, is gas cost). Also transportation tariffs should be changed as they are rather high.

Because of high prices Ukraine may import (from Russia as well) 200,000 MT - 250,000 MT of mineral fertilizers notwithstanding the fact that currently local chemical plants have 150,000 MT of unsold products on stock.