Nigeria’s economy is set to receive further boosts, as Dangote Fertiliser Limited has announced the commencement of urea production in commercial quantity.
President of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote disclosed this on Friday at the facility’s final inspection tour by the Central Bank Governor, Godwin Emefiele and some top bank chief executives in Ibeju Lekki, Lagos.
Emefiele was at the plant in the company of chief excutives of Zenith Bank, Guaranty Trust Bank, Access Bank, United Bank for Africa and First Bank to witness the commencement of production.
According to Dangote, the Fertiliser plant has the capacity to produce three million metric tonnes per annum of urea and has been classified as the biggest project in the global fertiliser industry.
He said: “This Phase 1 of the project, which is estimated to cost $2.5 billion, is to manufacture 3mmtpa of urea per annum. This capacity will later be expanded to produce multi grades of fertilisers to meet soil, crop and climate specific requirements for the African continent.
Dangote stated that the fertiliser plant would make Nigeria the biggest urea exporting country in sub-Saharan Africa and biggest producer of polypropylene and polyethylene.
According to him, the Fertiliser complex comprises Ammonia and Urea plants with associated facilities and infrastructure, to produce 3 MMTPA Urea. The complex consist of: 2 x 2,200 MTPD Ammonia Plants based on Halder Topsoe technology, 2 x 4,000 MTPD Melt Urea Plants based on Snamprogetti technology, and 2 x 4,000 MTPD Urea Granulation Plants based on Uhde Technology.
He added:: “The three million tonnes of Urea is certified, licensed by all regulatory authorities in Nigeria. We have gotten all licenses from the National Security Adviser, the Ministry of Agriculture, Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON), NAFDAC and all other authorities. So, our Urea will be in the market from Monday, and by God’s grace before the end of this month, we will start bringing in dollars from the first line that we have commissioned.”
Furthermore, he said that the urea is a small percentage utilisation of gas that the country is actually flaring. He said the company planned to saturate the market with Urea and having already collected the database of farmers would also ensure adequate training of farmers on best application of Urea.
“Our primary interest is to saturate the local market. Training farmers will help to sustain farming activities, and this will ensure food security” he added.
He commended the CBN boss and the banks CEOs for their supports to ensure the success of the plants, pointing out that the time had come for Nigeria to move away from selling crude oil to value added petroleum products.
“We need to look at transforming the industrial capacity of the country earning dollars and at the same time doing what we call import substitution,” Dangote stressed.
Speaking, the CBN Governor said that Nigeria has the potential to export at least 3.5 million metric tonnes of urea to different parts of the world.
“Nigeria needs between 1 million metric to 1.5 million metric tonnes of Urea to meet the local demand. So, we have potentials to export at least three to four million metrics tonnes of Urea to different parts of the world. With this latest development, Nigeria has become one of the major producers of Urea in the world. This for me, is a story, which no one would have believed would happened in Nigeria. Nigeria now ranks amongst the leading countries in the production of Urea in the world. This, for me is a story that no one would have believed will happen in Nigeria.,” he said.
He also said that the mechanical commissioning of the Petrochemical and Refinery plant would kick off by the end of the first quarter of next year.
Dangote has committed that mechanical completion will be achieved by the end of this year and we are expecting that the refinery will be completed by the first quarter of next year,” Emefiele stressed.