Page 10 - DMEA Week 23 2021

DMEA PETROCHEMICALS DMEA

Egypt begins work at Suez

petrochemical facility

AFRICA EGYPTIAN Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly El-Sisi has instructed the zone’s developers to
this week attended a ground-breaking ceremony focus on investments aimed at localising tech-
for the start of construction at a new $7.5bn pet- nology and industrial capacity as well as boosting
rochemical facility in the Suez Canal Economic employment. With this in mind, the petrochem-
Zone (SCZone) at Ain Sokhna. ical facility is of particular interest, given that it is
The ceremony follows a financing deal for the expected to add around 15,000 jobs, though this
facility between the Red Sea National Refining figure appears to apply only to the construction
and Petrochemicals Co. and the SCZone, which and development phase.
was announced in April. Meanwhile, El-Molla said that the facility is
The 1mn tonne per year (tpy) facility will pro- being built on an area of 3.56 square km allocated
duce a range of refined products, including pol- to the SDZone’s Main Development Co.™
yethylene, polypropylene, polyester and bunker
fuel, when it comes on stream in early 2024.
In doing so, Cairo expects that it will make
a significant contribution towards reducing the
country’s petroleum product import bill.
Also in attendance at the ceremony were Min-
ister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Tarek
El Molla, Minister of Transportation Kamel El
Wazir, Port Said Governor Adel El-Ghadban,
Governor of Suez Abdel Majid Saqr, Governor
of Ismailia Sherif Bishara and Chairman of the
SCZone Yehia Zaki.
The Prime Minister said SCZone is one of the
country’s most important national projects, not-
ing that President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi maintains
a keen interest in its progress.

Dangote kicks off urea production

AFRICA NIGERIA’S Dangote Group this week Uhde Technology.
announced that it had begun commercial pro- Dangote said: “The 3mn tonnes of urea is
duction of urea as it moves to liberalise the fer- certified, licensed by all regulatory authorities
tiliser market. in Nigeria. We have gotten all licences from
Speaking during a tour of the company’s the National Security Adviser, the Ministry of
facilities near Lagos over the weekend, President Agriculture, Standard Organisation of Nigeria
Aliko Dangote said that the urea plant which will (SON), NAFDAC and all other authorities.”
have a capacity of 3mn tonnes per year (tpy) in He added: “So, our urea will be in the market
its first phase, is the largest project in the global from Monday, and by God’s grace before the end
fertiliser sector. of this month, we will start bringing in dollars
A ceremony to mark the beginning of pro- from the first line that we have commissioned.”
duction was attended by Godwin Emefiele, Gov- Meanwhile, the company’s intention is to sat-
ernor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and urate the market with urea, then to ensure that
other bankers. farmers are adequately trained in utilising urea
Phase 1 came in at a total cost of $2.5bn and to “sustain farming activities [and …] ensure
is located near the 650,000-barrel-per-day (bpd) food security”.
oil refinery Dangote is building at a cost of nearly Emefiele noted: “Nigeria needs 1-1.5mn
$20bn. tonnes of urea to meet the local demand. So, we
The Dangote Fertiliser complex consists of have potential to export at least three to four mil-
two 2,200-tonne per day ammonia plants using lion metrics tonnes of urea to different parts of
Halder Topsoe technology, two 4,000-tpd melt the world. With this latest development, Nigeria
urea plants using Snamprogetti technology and has become one of the major producers of urea
two 4,000-tpd urea granulation plants using in the world.”™

P10 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 23 10•June•2021