Moroccan firm to build $1.5bn ammonia plant in Nigeria

Morocco’s OCP Group, expects to reach a deal this year to build a Nigerian ammonia plant, chief executive of the OCP Africa subsidiary told Reuters, yesterday.

The world’s largest phosphate exporter, which is 95 percent state-owned, is also considering a factory in Ghana in 2020 as it seeks to bring customised fertilisers closer to key African markets, Karim Lotfi Senhaji told Reuters.

Like many other Moroccan firms, including banks and insurers, OCP has been expanding its investments in sub-Saharan Africa in recent years, boosting the kingdom’s economic clout.

Lotfi Senhaji said the Nigerian plant would cost $1.5 billion and would have a total capacity of 1 million tonnes of ammonia.

OCP signed a protocol agreement in June to build the industrial platform with Nigeria’s Sovereign Investment Authority.

In Ethiopia, the Moroccan firm expects its chemical plant to be operational by 2023 or 2024, with an initial capacity of 2.5 million tonnes of fertilisers, he said.

These investments are part of a strategy to boost phosphate-based fertiliser use and production in Africa where there is potential to boost consumption five-fold from about 5 million tonnes currently, he said.

The group plans a blending facility in Rwanda, three in Nigeria, one in Ivory Coast, five in Ethiopia and one in Ghana, with each costing between $8 million and $12 million. “These will be launched in 2019 and we expect to have them ready in 2020,” he said.