Dangote Fertiliser Limited has begun the countdown to the inauguration of its $2 billion granulated urea fertiliser complex located in the Dangote Free Zone, Lekki, Lagos, raising hopes for improved agricultural production in the country.
With a capacity of 3 million tons per annum, the plant has been classified as the largest granulated urea fertiliser complex to emerge in in the history of the fertiliser industry.
When the project becomes fully operational, Nigeria would be able to significantly reduce the importation of fertiliser and save $0.5 billion from import substitution. It will ultimately remove the need for imports and provide $0.4 billion from exports as the supply of fertiliser from the plant would be enough for the Nigerian and neighbouring markets.
The project will additionally create thousands of direct and indirect jobs in construction and related fields.
Several critical sections of the plant are currently going through various stages of pre-commissioning and test-run. Virtually all the sections of the plant such as central control room, ammonia and urea bulk storage, cooling tower, power generator plant, and granulation plant have been completed and are going through pre-testing.
“I am happy that by the time our plant is fully commissioned, the country will become self-sufficient in fertiliser production and even have the capacity to export the products to other African countries,” Devakumar Edwin, group executive director, strategy, portfolio development & capital projects, Dangote Industries Limited, said.
“Right now, farmers are forced to utilise whatever fertiliser that is available as they have no choice, but we need to know that the fertiliser that will work in one state may not be suitable in another state, as they may not have the same soil type and composition. The same fertiliser you use for sorghum may not be the fertiliser you will use for sugarcane,” Edwin said.
Saipem of Italy is the engineering, procurement and supervision (EP) contractor for the project, while Tata Consulting Engineers of India is the project management consultant (PMC) for the project.
Already, Dangote Feritiser has started receiving gas supply from the Nigerian Gas Company and Chevron Nigeria Limited under the Gas Sale and Purchase Agreement to supply 70 million standard cubic feet per day (Scf/d) of natural gas to Dangote Fertiliser Limited.
Edwin said the Dangote Fertiliser complex, which is sited on 500 hectares of land, has the capacity to expand as it is only occupying a small fraction of the allotted portion.
He said the management of the complex is confident that the fertiliser business will deliver reasonable profit to the company and its shareholders, as it is projected that population growth and the need for food production will jack up the consumption of urea fertiliser beginning from 2020 when production would have commenced in earnest.
The current consumption of urea estimated at a dismal 700,000 tons per annum by Nigerian farmers is said to be due to very poor usage and is believed to be the cause of poor product yield, which threatens food security in the country.
By 2020, Nigerian population is projected to increase to about 207 million which would drive the need for increased food production. Estimates say around 5 million tons of fertilisers is required per year in Nigeria in the next five to seven years bifurcated into 3.5 million tons of urea and 1.5 million tons of NPK, while current production levels are at 1.6 million tons as at 2019.
