Report: Dangote pushes Nigeria to third highest country in urea capacity additions

A new report by GlobalData, a data analytics company, has placed Nigeria the third highest country in urea capacity additions with the launch of the Dangote Fertiliser plant.

The report, titled: “Global Urea Capacity and Capital Expenditure Outlook to 2030 – India and Iran Lead Global Urea Capacity Additions”, said global urea capacity is poised to see considerable growth over the next five years, potentially increasing by 37 percent to 305.92 million tpy in 2030 from 222.96 million tpy in 2020.

“Nigeria will be the third-highest country in terms of capacity additions with a capacity of 11.58 million tpy by 2030,” the report reads.

“Major capacity additions will be from two planned plants Dangote Group Lekki Urea Plant 1 and Dangote Group Lekki Urea Plant 2 with a capacity of 1.50 million tpy each by 2030.

“Dangote Industries Ltd, Nagarjuna Fertilizers and Chemicals Ltd and Fertilizer Corporation of India Ltd will be the top three companies globally in terms of planned and announced capacity additions over the outlook period.”

Dangote Industries Limited had said products from its $2 billion granulated urea fertiliser plant will be available in the market from June 7, 2021.

Speaking during the truck out of urea fertiliser held recently, Devakumar Edwin, group executive director of strategy, capital projects and portfolio development at Dangote Industries Limited, said: “We have the capacity to turn out 4,500 tonnes of urea every day, this is a bulk application fertilizer and each crop in Nigeria or globally will require nitrogen and this is a rich fertiliser, having 46 percent nitrogen.

“Currently, the demand is less than one million tonnes and we alone can produce three million tonnes, so we can easily meet local demand and also produce for export to other West African countries”.

Aliko Dangote, president of the Dangote Group, said the plant would make Nigeria the biggest urea exporting country in sub-Saharan Africa and biggest producer of polypropylene and polyethylene.

Dangote had said the urea fertiliser plant would bring about $1.2 billion into the country in terms of foreign exchange.