Three ships carrying urea for the Maha cultivation season will reach Sri Lanka before the end of October, the National Fertilizer Secretariat says, with the first due on Thursday.
Secretariat Director Chandana Loku Hewage said one vessel arrives the day after tomorrow — 22 October — and the remaining two on 25 and 30 October, NewsFirst reported at 8.29 a.m. The stocks are being brought from China.
The filing puts the season’s urea requirement at approximately 180,000 metric tonnes.
The same number, used two different ways
That figure is the reason this is worth more than a shipping schedule.
On 6 October this desk reported the Secretariat’s own account of the urea position, sourced to the same director — his surname transliterated then as Lokuhewage. He put national availability at around 180,000 metric tonnes of urea, described it as sufficient for the Maha season now under way, and said about 18,000 tonnes had already gone out to farmers.
Today the same 180,000 tonnes is described not as what the country holds but as what the season requires.
The two statements are not reconcilable as written. If 180,000 tonnes was the stock in hand on 6 October and 180,000 tonnes is the requirement, the season was already covered and three further cargoes would be surplus. If 180,000 tonnes is the requirement and three ships are needed this month to meet it, then the stock quoted on 6 October was not the figure it appeared to be. Neither filing acknowledges the other, and neither outlet has asked.
This desk records the discrepancy and adopts neither reading. The per-ship tonnages have not been published, so the arriving volume cannot be set against either number.
The vessel that was stuck
The 6 October report also described a 21,000-tonne urea vessel from the United Arab Emirates anchored off Oman, held up near the Strait of Hormuz, with discussions under way to bring it in. Today’s filing describes three ships from China and does not mention the UAE cargo. Whether it ever arrived, and whether it is one of the three, is not stated.
Not reported
NewsFirst does not give per-vessel tonnages, the supplier, the contracted price, or the current stock position. No other verified newsroom had filed on the three-ship schedule at the time of writing — searches across Ada Derana, the Daily Mirror, Daily FT, the Island, EconomyNext, Daily News, News.lk, Colombo Gazette and Lanka Business Online returned earlier fertilizer stories but nothing on this announcement, so the report stands single-sourced.
For context on the subsidy side, the Cabinet has approved a fertiliser subsidy of Rs 30,000 per hectare for the 2026/27 Maha season, capped at two hectares per farmer, which this desk covered on 6 October.
