Dangote Fertilizer Limited, an entity of the Dangote Group, on Wednesday (March 2) signed a gas delivery agreement with the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited and its Joint Venture (JV) partners including Shell, Total and Eni. The agreement is for the delivery of 70 million standard cubic feet (Scuf) of gas per day. It was signed in Abuja on the sidelines of the Fifth Nigeria International Energy Summit (NIES 2022), with the theme “Revitalizing Industry: Future Fuels and Energy Transition”.
For Dangote Group Chairman, Aliko Dangote (pictured), the additional gas will bring more foreign currency into the country given the energy crisis. It will also allow Nigeria to consolidate its rank as the second largest African fertilizer producer after Egypt.
“With our fertilizer factory, Notore, and Indorama, we are second in Africa. Apart from Egypt, no other African country has our capacity. We will satisfy the domestic market and also export and we are talking about 1.8 billion dollars (savings) in terms of foreign exchange entering the country,” Aliko Dangote spoke during the signing.
Nigeria’s stated goal is to achieve zero fertilizer imports for the country by 2022. Dangote Fertilizer Limited currently produces about 65% of all national fertilizer production.
According to the CEO of NNPC Limited, Mele Kyari, the deal aims to further boost Dangote Fertilizers’ capacity for its Train 2 fertilizer plant.
“The agreement will undoubtedly increase the use of gas in the domestic market, but more importantly that it will serve as a real means of increasing local production of fertilizers in the country, which is the aspiration of the government to this for the country to become self-sufficient in fertilizer production,” he said.
The Nigeria Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) recently released a domestic gas demand requirement for 2022, setting it at 4.4 billion standard cubic feet for Nigeria. The country is considered one of Africa’s largest countries in terms of hydrocarbon exploration and production, with over 206 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
