Lagos, Nigeria — Notore Chemical Industries Ltd., owner of the only urea plant in sub-Saharan Africa, said April 24 that it has signed a joint venture agreement with Mitsubishi Corp., Tokyo, to develop an ammonia, urea, and other petrochemicals plant at its existing facility at Onne, Rivers State, Nigeria. The project will involve the construction of an integrated plant complex with production capacities of 1,700 mt/d of ammonia, 3,000 mt/d of urea, and 1,500 mt/d of other petrochemicals. An agreement was also signed with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) in Japan to carry out the pre-FEED for the project. It is expected that early works (including FEED) should be concluded in the first quarter of 2013. The early works phase will be followed by 36 months of Engineering, Procurement, and Construction (EPC). The new plant, owing to its advantage of being built on a "brown-field" site with existing gas facilities and other infrastructure, is expected to come on-stream by 2016. Notore commenced production of commercial quantities of ammonia in January 2010 and granular urea in April 2010 at its 300,000 mt/y ammonia and 500,000 mt/y urea capacity plants. Notore says it has now achieved its plant’s nameplate capacity through a refurbishment and operational excellence program that it embarked upon. A debottlenecking exercise is planned for fourth quarter 2013, which will further increase annual output to 430,000 mt of ammonia and 750,000 mt of urea.
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