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 Africa’s leading conglomerate, Dangote Industries Limited.
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.
“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, as we have received an answer from somebody who views them and makes it straight to the farmers.”
Dangote Fertilizer plant which is fully owned by Dangote Industries is expected to manufacture 3MMTPA of urea, cut Nigeria’s fertilizer imports, and generate US$400 million annual foreign exchange, in export to Africa countries.
“What we are now trying to do is customize the fertilizer, as soil condition in Kaduna is different from the soil condition in other states. This is because the climatic condition is different and the crop could be corn, maize, rice or sugar,” Dakumar Edwin, the Group Executive Director, Capital Projects and Portfolio Development, Dangote Industries Limited, said.
“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 we are doing the soil mapping process, and then we are trying to make customized.”
It is important to understand that the capacity of the plant would later be expanded to produce multiple grades of fertilizers to meet soil, crop and climate-specific requirement for the African continent, as fertilizer is essential for agribusiness in Africa.
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