Beyond Urea Production: How HURL is Securing India's Fertilizer Future

India’s Next Fertilizer Frontier: From Urea Self-Reliance to Raw-Material Self-Reliance. By Dr. Siba Prasad Mohanty, Managing Director, Hindustan Urvarak & Rasayan Limited. India’s fertilizer sector has made significant strides in bolstering the nation’s agricultural and food security. Over the last decade, substantial capital has been poured into domestic urea capacity, boosting output and curbing import reliance. However, India remains the world’s largest urea importer, and domestic production itself is heavily tethered to natural gas, much of which is imported as LNG.

This underscores a critical aspect of self-reliance: fertilizer security is inextricably linked to energy and raw-material security. In an increasingly volatile global landscape, the next chapter of India’s fertilizer journey is not merely about increasing output, but about constructing a resilient, diversified, and sustainable fertilizer value chain, underpinned by secure energy, technology, and indigenous capabilities. The challenge ahead is not just to manufacture more urea, but to fortify the security of the energy and raw-material chain that supports that production. HURL’s emerging Green Urea and Coal-to-Urea initiatives demonstrate two complementary strategies: one utilizing Green Ammonia and CO₂ captured from thermal power plants, and the other leveraging indigenous coal gasification.

India’s Urea Landscape

India has achieved notable success in expanding its domestic urea manufacturing footprint. Urea production climbed from 22.5 million tonnes in 2014–15 to 30.6 million tonnes in 2024–25, with six new/revived facilities contributing 7.62 million tonnes of annual capacity. Currently, installed capacity sits at approximately 29.1 million tonnes. Despite this growth, 15–20% of the country’s urea requirements are still met via imports, leaving the nation exposed to global urea and energy market fluctuations. The challenge is evolving: demand is climbing, aging infrastructure requires replacement, and the raw materials powering the sector remain vulnerable to international market dynamics. In FY 2025-26, urea demand reached roughly 40 Million tonnes against a domestic output of about 30 Million tonnes, creating a 10 Million tonne deficit. The critical question has shifted from "How much urea can India produce?" to "How secure are the raw materials used to produce it?"

Natural gas: the strategic vulnerability behind conventional urea — Natural gas serves as the primary feedstock for ammonia-based urea manufacturing. India’s urea plants utilize around 55 MMSCMD of natural gas, positioning the fertilizer industry as the nation’s largest consumer of this fuel. With roughly 85% of the natural gas used in domestic urea production sourced from imported LNG, the link between fertilizer output and global energy markets is undeniable. As India strives for greater urea self-sufficiency, ensuring reliable, affordable, and diverse energy and feedstock sources is paramount.

The price shock: before and after the war — This reliance has left the sector susceptible to intense price volatility. Average pooled gas prices for urea manufacturing hovered around US$12–14/MMBtu for 5–6 years, but have recently climbed to approximately US$18/MMBtu, with EPMC gas prices reaching as high as US$23/MMBtu. The Russia–Ukraine conflict in 2022 triggered a surge in global gas prices, driving up India’s pooled gas costs and increasing the subsidy burden. More recently, the 2026 conflict involving Iran and the resulting disruption in the Strait of Hormuz highlighted the fragility of this supply chain, as Gulf LNG supplies faced pressure and international urea prices spiked. These events underscore that fertilizer security is inextricably linked to energy security. The path forward lies in establishing a more secure foundation for domestic urea production through robust gas infrastructure, diversified supply chains, and alternative feedstock routes like coal gasification, green hydrogen and green ammonia.

Government Strategy: Affordability, Availability and Transition

The Government of India has systematically bolstered urea self-reliance through a mix of capacity expansion, policy support, and the diversification of production methods. The New Investment Policy (NIP)–2012 facilitated the establishment of six new urea units, including HURL’s Gorakhpur, Sindri and Barauni plants, which added 7.62 Million tonnes per annum of capacity. In July 2026, the Government approved the National Investment Policy for Urea–2026 (NIPU-2026), aimed at incentivizing new investments in gasbased urea manufacturing and further strengthening domestic output.

Simultaneously, the government is actively fostering alternatives to conventional natural-gasbased urea. The Department of Fertilizers has issued an EOI for Green Urea projects, which envision the utilization of green ammonia and captured CO₂. Concurrently, the Ministry of Coal is championing coal/lignite gasification for downstream products, including urea, backed by a ₹37,500 crore scheme; under the previous coal-gasification initiative, three new urea projects were approved. Regarding green ammonia, SECI's SIGHT programme has generated long-term demand from the fertilizer industry. Competitive bidding yielded green-ammonia prices between ₹49.75 to ₹64.74 per kg, with the lowest bid of ₹49.75 per kg marking a significant milestone in proving the commercial viability of green ammonia in India.

HURL: Leading the Next Frontier

Leveraging its experience in building and operating large-scale urea facilities, Hindustan Urvarak & Rasayan Limited (HURL) is advancing the next phase of fertilizer self-reliance through two distinct technological avenues. HURL is pursuing Green Urea production by utilizing Green Ammonia and capturing CO₂ at its Barauni Unit, while simultaneously developing coal-gasification-based urea production at its Sindri Unit. These initiatives reflect HURL’s commitment to moving beyond traditional natural-gas-based urea production and exploring methods that enhance feedstock security, minimize external dependencies, and promote more sustainable fertilizer manufacturing.

HURL Barauni: turning green hydrogen and captured CO₂ into Urea — At its Barauni Unit in Bihar, HURL is investigating a Green Urea pathway, taking advantage of the proximity of its fertilizer complex to NTPC’s Barauni power plant. Following the Expression of Interest released by the Department of Fertilizers on 22 June 2026 for domestic Green Urea production, HURL has formulated a concept for the strategic integration of Green Ammonia and CO₂ captured from NTPC for urea synthesis. To advance this, HURL has entered into an MoU with NTPC, establishing a framework for collaboration.

The conceptual chain is straightforward yet potentially transformative: Renewable Power → Green Hydrogen → Green Ammonia + Captured CO₂ → Green Urea. This approach merges two distinct industrial agendas—clean energy and carbon utilisation—with fertilizer production. Crucially, it treats CO₂ not as an emission to be managed, but as a carbon feedstock that can be captured and utilised in urea manufacturing. By integrating renewable-energy-based green ammonia with captured CO₂ and an existing fertilizer ecosystem, HURL is exploring a route that could reduce reliance on conventional fossil-based feedstocks while establishing a lower-carbon method for urea production.

HURL Sindri: indigenous coal as an alternative feedstock — HURL is also exploring a Coal-to-Urea pathway utilizing coal gasification, in partnership with Coal India Limited (CIL) at its Sindri Unit. HURL has signed an MoU with CIL to jointly investigate the project, combining HURL’s expertise in fertilizer production with CIL’s resources and capabilities in the coal sector. This initiative aligns with the Government of India’s strategic push to promote coal gasification as a means to reduce dependence on imported natural gas and enable greater utilisation of indigenous resources for chemical and fertilizer production.

The conceptual chain is: Indigenous Coal → Gasification → Syngas → Ammonia → Urea. This pathway is not merely about fuel substitution. Its strategic importance lies in creating an additional domestic feedstock route for urea, a product vital to India’s food security. By merging HURL’s fertilizer expertise with CIL’s domestic coal resources, the initiative aims to convert an indigenous resource into an essential agricultural input while mitigating exposure to imported natural gas and global energy-market volatility. In this regard, the Sindri initiative represents another critical dimension of the next frontier of fertilizer self-reliance.

HURL’s three existing plants possess a combined urea capacity equivalent to about 3.8 Million Tonnes per annum. HURL is evaluating additional strategic pathways in Green Urea at Barauni and Coal-to-Urea at Sindri, each envisioned in current planning documents at roughly 1.27 Million Tonnes per annum. Furthermore, HURL is considering a gas based plant at its Gorakhpur Unit. This represents a potential future footprint. Should these projects be successfully developed and commissioned, HURL would possess a production platform with a potential additional capacity of about 2.54 Million Tonnes through alternative raw-material pathways. Consequently, HURL would become India’s largest urea manufacturer, with an annual production capacity of 7.62 Million Tonnes.

A New Definition of Fertiliser Self-Reliance

The core strategic proposition is simple: a tonne of urea manufactured in India bolsters product self-reliance; a tonne manufactured using secure indigenous resources strengthens both product and feedstock self-reliance. Green hydrogen can mitigate dependence on fossil-fuel-derived hydrogen in ammonia production, while captured CO₂ can supply the carbon component necessary for urea synthesis. Meanwhile, coal gasification can convert an indigenous carbon resource into syngas for downstream ammonia and urea production. While these are distinct technological pathways, they share the same objective—greater control over the raw-material chain that underpins urea production.

This does not imply that natural gas will lose its importance. Gas-based plants will continue to be a cornerstone of India’s fertilizer architecture. The strategic opportunity lies in building a diversified production portfolio, where natural gas, coal gasification and green hydrogen each play a defined role based on economics, technology maturity, resource availability and environmental performance. India has already proven its capability to construct large-scale urea manufacturing capacity. The next chapter involves deepening the definition of self-reliance.

From "Made in India" to "Made in India from India’s Resources"

Fertilizer self-reliance can thus be viewed through three interconnected layers: product self-reliance, energy self-reliance and raw-material self-reliance. India’s current urea plants support the first. Diversified and secure gas sourcing bolsters the second. The emerging Green Urea and Coal-to-Urea pathways address the third by seeking to anchor critical feedstocks more firmly within India’s own resource and energy ecosystem.

For India, this is ultimately more than an industrial question. Fertilizer security is a fundamental component of food security, and the resilience of the fertilizer sector depends on the resilience of the energy and raw-material systems that support it. The next chapter of India’s fertilizer story is therefore not simply about producing more urea. It is about producing urea more securely, more sustainably and increasingly from India’s own resources.