Dangote Fertiliser on Friday said its newly constructed plant would produce more than double the country’s demand for fertiliser while rolling out its first batch of products to the market.
The Dangote Group Executive Director, Strategy, Portfolio Development & Capital projects, Devakumar Edwin, said the plant’s current production capacity of about three million metric tonnes per annum was more than double the country’s demand of less than one million metric tonnes.
He said the company would have enough to distribute across the country and have more left for export.
Edwin also spoke about the advantages the plant would have on the country saying, “Agriculture can create massive jobs but the yields in Nigeria are very low compared to the rest of Africa.”
“Adequate availability of fertiliser will ensure that people get back to farming and make the business a commercial success.
“This plant is a large project that would potentially create a lot of jobs reducing social unrest arising from unemployment and underemployment.”
He added, “Look at the problems COVID-19 caused when it came. We can improve self-sufficiency in food production and improve food security.
“We will also generate substantial foreign exchange as we will have surplus to export to West African countries, Latin America, and some parts of Europe.”
He stated that there was no reason for importation as 98 per cent of the raw materials required for production was available in the country.
Edwin said, “Sub-saharan Africa will become the food basket of the world, as there is surplus land and water. We are already talking to some mining companies in SSA who mine phosphate, so we can add that to our line. We would not stop with Urea. NPK, Di-Ammonium Phosphate and others are coming soon.”
Raghav Mathur, Director Projects at Dangote Industries Limited, said that the company was looking to boost local fertiliser consumption as Nigeria’s was far below the world standard.
He said, “Normally, the global standard for fertiliser consumption is 150 kilos per hectare, but what we have in Nigeria is about 20, so there is good potential for Nigeria to consume more fertiliser and increase the unit and quality of the produce.”
Mathur said, “We will be churning out about 100 truckloads every day at a minimum, which should be about 800 tonnes of urea.
“Our current production capacity is about 4,500 tonnes daily. Our urea has 46 per cent nitrogen and will boost farmers’ soil nitrogen content.
“We will not just be sending products to the market, but we have extension programmes to facilitate training for the farmers, educate them on how to use the fertiliser, have researchers to collect soil samples and test in labs that we are building so we can further improve quality of our products.”
Source: punchng