Algeria this week said it plans to build a $7 billion phosphate project in the country in a joint venture with Chinese companies, China’s Xinhua news agency reported, citing a March 22 statement by Algeria’s national oil producer Sonatrach.
This is the latest of a series of announcements of such a project by the North African country going back several years (GM Jan. 29, 2021; June 12 & Sept. 18, 2020; Sept. 21 & Nov. 30, 2018; July 22, 2016). Others proposed in recent years – more recently involving the participation of Chinese companies – have not progressed.
Asmidal, a subsidiary of Sonatrach, and Algerian mining firm Manal, on March 22 signed an agreement with Chinese companies Wuhuan Engineering and Tian’An Chemical to launch a joint venture Algerian Chinese Fertilizers Co., according to this week’s Sonatrach statement.
Some 56 percent of the shares will be owned by the Algerian parties and the remaining 44 percent by the two Chinese firms.
According to Xinhua’s report, the project is targeting an annual production capacity of 5.4 million mt/y of fertilizer, although some other reports have put the targeted capacity lower, at around 4.5 million mt/y.
The project will exploit the phosphate deposits of the Bled El Hadba and Djebel Onk mines in Algeria’s easternmost province of Tebessa, while fertilizer production facilities are planned to be built in the port of Annaba to facilitate exports.
Algeria has produced around 1.2 million mt/y of phosphate rock in recent years, with much of this volume directed at the export market.
A phosphates megaproject is one of the Algerian government’s projects aimed at reducing the country’s heavy dependence on hydrocarbons.