NIGERIA – Dangote Industries Limited has announced that its US$2.5 billion granulated urea fertilizer plant which is located at Ibeju Lekki, Lagos State is set to commence full operation in the first quarter of 2021 after its take off suffered some setbacks owing to disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Dangote Urea fertilizer plant is set-up to boost food sufficiency in Nigeria by tapping into the country’s demand for fertilizer, a critical component for boosting productivity.
According to recent information, the newly completed fertilizer complex is said to have gulped US$2.5 billion under the first phase of the project, as Africa’s most diversified manufacturing conglomerate extends dominance into the fertilizer market.
“This plant in five-ten years will change Nigeria agriculture and economy, as the efforts by Dangote Industries will help to ward off the crisis encountered in local production which has impacted agriculture,” the Minister of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD), Alhaji Sabo Nanono during a tour of the fully completed facility in 2020, said.
Dangote fertilizer plant is expected to have an annual processing capacity of 3 million tonnes of Urea
“The new fertilizer plant will make fertilizer available to Nigerian farmers, now we can forget all those merchants of fertilizer that have been confusing this country for the last society 40 years.”
Dangote fertilizer plant which is fully owned by Dangote Industries is expected to manufacture 3 million tonnes per annum capacity of urea, cut Nigeria’s fertilizer imports, and generate US$400 million annual foreign exchange, in export to other African countries.
“So, each crop and each type of soil requires slightly different type of materials, so what we are trying to do is we are trying to analyze all the soil through a mapping process, and then customized the fertilizer to match the area specifications,” Dakumar Edwin, the Group Executive Director, Capital Projects and Portfolio Development, Dangote Industries Limited, said.
It is important to understand that the capacity of the plant would later be expanded to produce multiple grades of fertilizers for the African continent.
Meanwhile, OCP Africa, a subsidiary of leading global provider of phosphate and its derivatives in the region, OCP Group, broke ground for the establishment of US$13m Agricultural Centre of Excellence in Sokoto State, Northern Nigeria.
The facility will comprise of a fertilizer blending plant and a training center for farmers, fertilizer blenders and other stake holders in the agricultural value chain.
Having a production capacity of 200,000 MT per annum, the blending plant is expected to become operational in July 2021.