Dangote Industries partners with Standard Bank for landmark project

Dangote Fertilizer Plant is one of the 5 largest fertilizer plants in the world and the second-largest granulated urea fertilizer production facilities. The plant occupies 500 hectares of land in Lekki Free Trade Zone, Lagos, Nigeria, and was built at a cost of $2.5 billion.

Dangote Industries Limited is a diversified and fully integrated conglomerate with an annual group turnover of more than US$4 billion. The company has operations in Nigeria and Africa across a wide range of sectors including cement, sugar, salt, condiments, packaging, energy, port operations, fertilizer and petrochemicals. Their core business focus is to provide local value-added products and services that meet the basic needs of the populace through the construction and operation of large-scale manufacturing facilities in Nigeria and across Africa.

Standard Bank supported the Dangote Group with the company’s first IPO, as well as the first debt capital market transaction, and continues to partner with them to assist the company with its growth story. The bank recognises that one of the biggest challenges faced by African businesses is raising financing and therefore aims to partner with businesses to ensure that they are able to meet their objectives.

Dangote Fertilizer Plant was established to produce 3 million metric tonnes per annum of urea fertilizer to support the current level of fertilizer consumption in the country currently estimated at 1.5 million metric tonnes but is anticipated to reach between 5 to 7 million metric tonnes in the years ahead. The new plant supports Nigeria’s goal to be self-sufficient in fertiliser production, with excess capacity to export. The Dangote group penetration strategy is to work with farmer associations, corporate farms, NPK blenders, NGO/development partners, state governments in Nigeria, as well as governments across Africa and beyond who are looking for a sustainable approach to improve soil and farm yields.

The Dangote Group has ambitions to become the leading provider of essential needs in food and shelter in sub-Saharan Africa and a world-class enterprise that is passionate about the quality of life of the general populace and generates high returns to stakeholders. The company initially started out as a bulk commodity trading company in the 1970s, which was encouraged by the liberalised commodity import regime of the then government of Nigeria. In the late 1990s, the company transformed its strategy and began to focus on manufacturing for import substitution. Over the last 4 decades, the Dangote Group has evolved and diversified into new sectors and regions and remains focused on building local manufacturing capacity to generate employment, reduce capital flight and increase local value addition.

The company aims to touch the lives of people by providing their basic needs and will continue to sustain and improve on its market leadership in cement manufacturing, sugar milling, sugar refining, port operations, packaging material production and salt refining.