Dangote fertiliser plant to begin operations in December

The Dangote Group says its $2 billion granulated urea fertiliser plant located at Ibeju Lekki, Lagos, will begin operations before the end of December.

Anthony Chiejina, group head for corporate communications at Dangote Group, confirmed the development to NAN on Wednesday in Lagos.

“The project will be ready for take-off before the end of December,” Chiejina said.

“The pre-testing has already been done and the delay in starting operations was due to the COVID-19 pandemic.”

The fertiliser plant has a name-plate annual capacity of three million tons of urea and ammonia, the largest in the world.

It is also being constructed in the Lekki Free Trade Zone area which houses other plants and factories including the 650,000 barrels per day Dangote Refinery and Lekki Port.

The test run exercise for the plant began in March.

In February, Aliko Dangote, chief executive officer of Dangote Group, had projected that the plant would begin operations in July.

Dangote had said that the project would be the largest fertiliser plant in the world with its three million tonnes per annum capacity.

He said it would make Nigeria the only urea exporting country in Sub-Saharan Africa, adding that the fertiliser and petrochemicals plants were capable of generating $2.5 billion annually.

According to him, the amount is almost 10 per cent of what Nigeria is getting from home remittances, which is one of the highest in the world.