The OCP group has decided to release 550,000 tons of fertilizer for the benefit of Africa. This release will include donations as well as the sale of volumes of discounted fertilizer to empower agriculture on the continent.
Assistance will represent 16% of African demand this year and a quarter of OCP's sales on the continent, Nada Elmajdoub, executive vice president of performance management for the group, said in a statement to Reuters.
In this sense, she said that the African Development Bank said in May that fertilizer prices on the continent had quadrupled since the start of the war in Ukraine, which disrupted supply chains, and that Africa faces a shortage of two million tonnes.
She added that OCP has earmarked 20% of its fertilizer production to meet the needs of the African continent, while it plans to build soil nutrient and ammonia plants in Nigeria and Ethiopia, adding that the group is taking up “the challenge of the availability and affordability of fertilizers”, through the increase in production.
The leading company in the phosphate industry plans, according to Nada Elmajdoub, to increase its production by an additional one million tonnes this year and two million tonnes next year, compared to 10.8 million tonnes last year. last year.
Reuters reported that in the first five months of this year, exports of phosphates and derivatives from Morocco almost doubled, reaching 47.6 billion dirhams.
As for OCP's 2021 turnover, it increased by 50% in 2021 to reach 84.3 billion dirhams, with fertilizers increasing by 62%, according to group figures.