OCP Africa SA, a wholly owned subsidiary of Morocco’s OCP Group SA, officially inaugurated a new NPK fertilizer blending plant in Nigeria on Oct. 18, Nigeria’s Punch newspaper reported on Oct. 14. Construction began in 2021 (GM March 5, 2021).
The $13.4 million facility in Kaduna in northwestern Nigeria started production on Feb. 16 and has an estimated 120 mt/h capacity and a 25,000 mt storage unit, according to the report. The USAID-funded West Africa Trade and Investment Hub awarded a $1.4 million investment grant to OCP Africa for the project. The balance of the investment has come from OCP.
The Kaduna plant is one of three fertilizer blending plants OCP Africa is establishing in Nigeria. The second is being built in Ogun State in the southwest, and the third in Sokoto in northwestern Nigeria. All together, the three plants will have a total production capacity of 500,000 mt/y of fertilizers, according to an earlier report by OCP (GM March 5, 2021).
The Ogun facility is targeted to start operations in January 2023 and the Sokoto plant in May 2023, according to the Punch report, citing OCP Nigeria Country Manager/Deputy Managing Director Caleb Usoh. The total cost of the three blending facilities was estimated at $43 million.
According to Usoh, the new blending plants will result in increased competition, improved product quality, and a reduction in the unit cost of fertilizer to the farmer. He said the plants were founded on a ‘Toll Blending Business Model,’ with provisions for manufacturing of both soil and crop-specific fertilizers.
As previously reported, OCP Africa is also developing a $1.3 billion industrial platform to produce ammonia and fertilizers in the country’s southern Atlantic Coast state of Akwa Ibom. The complex will utilize Nigerian gas and Moroccan phosphate.
Punch cited Usoh as saying the project will be established over the next four years and will “deepen the use of standard fertilizers” by Nigerian farmers. Earlier announcements by OCP suggested the new industrial complex will be producing from 2025 (GM April 9, 2021).
OCP and NISA inked a Shareholders’ Agreement on March 2, 2021, for the creation of a 50:50 joint venture company to oversee the development of the industrial platform (GM March 5, 2021), with the Moroccan government officially green-lighting OCP to take the stake early the following month (GM April 9, 2021).
OCP has put production capacity under the first phase of development at 750,000 mt/y of ammonia and 1 million mt/y of DAP and NPK fertilizers. Ammonia production capacity in the second phase of development is targeted to reach 1.5 million mt/y, with 70% of the output to be allocated for export to Morocco. The balance will be used to produce fertilizers at the complex for supply to Nigeria’s domestic market.