Urea from Dangote Fertiliser Ltd.’s new plant in Nigeria’s Lekki Free Trade Zone, about 50 km east of Central Lagos, is reported to be finally on sale nationwide. The company announced the formal start of granular urea production “in commercial quantities” earlier this month, and planned to start supplying product to the domestic market from June 7 (GM June 11, p. 28).
According to a report by The Lagos Times, citing Dangote Industries Ltd.’s Group Executive Director, Strategy, Capital Projects, & Portfolio Development Devakumar Edwin, the plant currently has the capacity to turn out more than 4,500 mt of urea per day, with “a minimum of 120 trucks per day” being pushed out across the country.
Phase 1 “nameplate” granular urea production capacity at the Dangote plant is 3 million mt/y.
Edwin put Nigeria’s current demand for urea at “less than 1 million mt a year,” so “we can easily meet local demand and also produce for export to other West African countries.”
According to a report by Nigeria’s This Day Live, also citing Edwin, in addition to West African and Central African countries, Dangote reiterated that it would target South American markets for the sale of its urea fertilizer products.
According to Edwin, in addition to Brazil, some of the other South American markets being targeted by the company include Argentina, Mexico, Chile, Uruguay, and Paraguay.
The producer is also targeting markets in the U.S. According to the report, citing Edwin, Dangote has been in discussions with potential customers in that nation during the past six months.
However, Dangote will not be looking at selling to the East African region, despite “the region being a good potential market” on account of it “being easier and more economical” for that region to get urea supplies from the Middle East due to the more favorable shipping cost, according to the report, citing Edwin.
The Nigerian group is about to commission its first ship loader at Lekki deep seaport, and is in the process of establishing a second one “to handle urea exports and to generate foreign exchange,” Edwin said.