President Muhammadu Buhari has commissioned the $2.5 billion Dangote Fertiliser Plant in the Ibeju-Lekki area of Lagos.
Buhari said during the ceremony that the plant which occupies 500 hectares of land in the Lekki Free Trade Zone and has capacity to produce three million metric tons of urea fertiliser per annum, was the second largest of such plants in the world.
“I am delighted to commission this new Dangote fertiliser plant which has installed capacity of three million metric tons of urea per annum. That makes it the second largest of such plants in the world,” he said.
HOW TRUE IS THIS CLAIM?
A new report by GlobalData, a data analytics company, had forecasted Nigeria would be the third highest country in urea capacity additions by 2030 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 metric tons per year in 2030 from 222.96 million metric tons per year in 2020.
“Nigeria will be the third-highest country in terms of capacity additions with a capacity of 11.58 million tpy by 2030. 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,” the report read.
However, the Dangote Fertiliser Plant which is undoubtedly Africa’s largest Granulated Urea Fertiliser complex, becomes the second largest in the world next to Qatar Fertiliser Company (QAFCO) founded in 1969 which has six world-class plants that produce a sizable annual capacity of 3.8 million metric tons of ammonia and 5.6 million metric tons of urea at present.
VERDICT
The claim that the DANGOTE urea fertiliser plants with a combined capacity of three million metric tons per annum is the second largest of such plants in the world, is true.