NIGERIAN billionaire Aliko Dangote opened a three-million-tonne fertiliser plant at a cost of $2.5-billion on Tuesday to target African and foreign markets even as the war in Ukraine has driven up prices for natural gas, a key ingredient for making urea.
Dangote said exports from the plant will go to Brazil, which relies heavily on Russia for imports of fertilizer. Shipments will also go to the United States, India and Mexico, he said at the launch.
Fertiliser prices have been rising at a time when planting usually picks up around the world, especially after Russia, the world’s biggest exporter of fertilizer, invaded Ukraine last month. The war has also disrupted shipping.
The plant, commissioned by President Muhammadu Buhari and located at the Lekki Free Zone in Lagos State, is designed to produce three-million tonnes of urea per year and supply all the major markets in sub-Saharan Africa.
Many in Nigeria hope the
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