By Chinelo Obogo, Lagos
Dangote Industries has revealed that its Urea fertiliser is now on sale nationwide and that it currently pushes out a minimum of 120 trucks daily across the country.
Group Executive Director of Strategy, Capital Projects and Portfolio Development, Mr Devakumar Edwin, told reporters at the weekend in Lagos that the plant has the capacity to turn out more than 4,500 tonnes of urea per day can meet the local demand and produce for exports.
Mr Edwin also said that besides fertiliser production, the company is working to support farmers with training on fertiliser application and even establish laboratories across the country for proper soil examination.
He said the plant was built to tap into Nigeria’s huge demand for fertiliser which is a critical component of achieving food sufficiency for Africa’s most populous country. The fertiliser plant is expected to manufacture three million metric tonnes of urea per annum, with a view to reducing the nation’s fertiliser imports, and generating $400m annual foreign exchange from export to Africa countries.
‘This is a bulk application fertiliser and we have the capacity to turn out 4,500tonnes of Urea every day. It has 46 per cent Nitrogen as each crop in Nigeria or globally will require it. We have the capacity to meet local demand and also export to African countries. 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.
‘The uniqueness of this plant, apart from the fact that we are producing is the focus on farmers’ support, on training, education, development as we are now establishing laboratories across the country and even mobile laboratories where we can go drive around and take soil samples for proper examination to effectively grow the agricultural outputs across the country,’ Edwin said.
Marketers and farmers in states like Kano have described the newly introduced fertiliser as a game-changer and a forecast for the expected agricultural revolution in the country as they welcomed over 10 trucks that entered Kano markets at the weekend.
Speaking at the event organised by Dan Hydro Company to mark the introduction of the fertiliser into the northern market, chairman of the Kano state Agro Dealers Association, Shuaibu Akarami said agro-dealers have confidence in Dangote fertiliser as they have in all his products, adding that as a dealer who spent decades in the business he has discovered that the fertiliser will have no problem penetrating the market in the North.
‘I have checked the product and have found out that it will have no problem penetrating the market. With my experience in agro products, I can authoritatively say the product has met our expectations and that has confirmed the confidence we have in Dangote fertiliser and other sister products of the Dangote Group,’ he said.
Head of operations, Dan- Hydro operations Mr. Hamadi Sekou Drammeh said Dangote fertiliser conforms to all set standard required by the regulatory agencies and believes that the shortage of fertiliser will be over in the country. In the same vein, the Sales Manager of Dan Hydro Mr Sulaiman Tanko assured that the product will be sold at a reasonable price that will enable fair competition in the market.