OCP SA, Casablanca, on Dec. 22 reiterated its ambitious goals to secure 40 percent of the world’s fertilizer market by 2028, as well as its commitment to Africa.
The group plans to increase its production capacity targeted solely at meeting African fertilizer demand to 3 million mt/y from the existing 1 million mt/y, according to a Moroccan World News report, citing OCP’s General Director at the Jorf Lasfar site, Abderrahmane Igourzal. Igourzal was speaking at a press conference at the 21st Khouribga African Film Festival in Khouribga, some 110 km southeast of Casablanca.
OCP operates a 1 million mt/y DAP/MAP/NPK plant at its Jorf Lasfar Hub, whose output is targeted entirely for the African market. The plant, named the Africa Fertilizer Complex, was inaugurated in February 2016, and includes a sulfuric acid unit and a 450,000 mt/y phosphoric acid unit, as well as 200,000 mt of fertilizer storage capacity (GM Feb. 5, 2016).
The Africa Fertilizer Complex plant was the first of four more or less identical facilities that the producer has since inaugurated. The output of these latter plants is marketed globally.
OCP produces nearly 1 million mt/y of fertilizer dedicated to Africa, but since demand is higher than supply, other facilities will be created to fill the gap so that the group can produce 3 million mt/y for African countries, Igourzal said.
The Moroccan group’s publications and reports indicate that OCP sold a total of 2.503 million mt of fertilizers (much of these being NPK and NPS, but also DAP and small volumes of MAP and TSP) to African countries in 2017. The sales to Africa accounted for 30 percent of the producer’s total fertilizer sales in 2017, and represented a more than 50 percent increase on the 1.652 million mt of fertilizers it sold to the continent in 2016, according to its own data.
OCP in February 2016 established a new fully-owned subsidiary, OCP Africa, with the aim of helping to meet the challenge of creating structured, efficient, and sustainable agriculture on the continent of Africa (GM Feb. 26, 2016). The group has since established a number of joint ventures, many of them including plans for the development of production units in several sub-Saharan African countries, including Ethiopia (GM Nov. 23, 2016; Jan. 26, 2018), Nigeria (GM Nov. 18, 2016; Dec. 9, 2016; May 19, 2017; Aug. 3, 2018), and Rwanda (GM June 1, 2018). The producer has also talked of plans to open fertilizer blending units in Tanzania and the Ivory Coast (GM March 16, 2018).
In March 2018, OCP Vice President of Marketing Hicham Benkirane spoke of the group’s plans to add some 5 million mt/y of new fertilizer production capacity by 2021, and as much as 8 million mt/y from 2022 to 2027 (GM March 16, 2018). OCP currently has capacity to produce some 44 million mt/y of phosphate rock, or 31 percent of global market share, according to the group’s own data. It currently has some 12 million mt/y of fertilizer production capacity.