President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday conducted the tape-cutting ceremony marking the commissioning of Dangote Fertiliser Plant with a nameplate capacity of 3 million metric tonnes per annum in Ibeju Lekki, Lagos.
The president said the plant is an endorsement of his administration target of food sufficiency, adding that it will reduce dependence on imported fertilizers and create employment for Nigerians.
The president inaugurated the $2.5 billion project in the presence of dignitaries including Aliko Dangote, president of Dangote Industries Limited, Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-olu, Central Bank of Nigeria Governor Godwin Emefiele, and Minister of Trade and Investment Niyi Adebayo.
The governor of Lagos state, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, said the project will address youth employment and boost agriculture in the country.
Sanwo-Olu lauded former Lagos state governor, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, for conceiving the idea of the Lekki Free Trade zone in 2003.
The President of the Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, while thanking the government for creating enabling environment, stressed that the plant will meet the fertilizer need of Nigeria and boost foreign exchange earnings through export.
He said the product is already being exported to the United States of Ameria and India.
The urea and ammonia fertiliser plant is the biggest of its kind in the world and, combined with a 650,000 barrels per day oil refinery standing within its vicinity, will cost Africa’s richest man $17.5 billion, Mr Emefiele said at the event.
The complex, which was built at a cost of $2.5 Billion, has the capacity to produce 3 million metric tonnes per annum of urea fertiliser in phase 1.
The refinery is due for launch later this year.
Test run began at the facility in March 2020 in hope that production would commence later in the year. But not until the first quarter of 2021 did that happen on account of disruptions from the pandemic outbreak.
