Dangote Declares Africa Will Be Fertilizer-Independent in Just 40 Months

At the Afreximbank annual meeting in Abuja on June 27, Nigerian industrialist Aliko Dangote unveiled a sweeping strategy aiming to eliminate Africa’s reliance on fertilizer imports within 40 months. Central to this vision is a planned expansion of his USD2.5 billion granulated urea facility on the outskirts of Lagos, currently the continent’s largest of its type. The plant now produces 3 million MT annually, with 37% of its output exported primarily to the U.S.

Africa today imports over 6 million MT of fertilizer each year, which exerts considerable pressure on foreign exchange reserves, especially for countries like Ethiopia striving to stabilize external accounts and support agricultural development. Dangote’s ambition is to double current capacity, surpassing Qatar to become the world’s top urea producer. “In the next 40 months, Africa will not import fertilizer from anywhere. We have a very aggressive trajectory at the moment. We want to put Dangote to be the highest producer of urea, bigger and higher than Qatar. Just give me 40 months,” he declared.