Market News

BY Anozie Egole

The President of Dangote Industries Limited, Aliko Dangote, has said that in the next two years, the company will be exporting almost 16,000 tonnes of fertiliser, which will amount to about $7m daily revenue to the Federal Government.

In a statement on Monday, Dangote announced this when he paid a courtesy visit to the headquarters of the Nigerian Ports Authority in Marina, Lagos. He added that with the exportation of fertiliser, the company would be the major supplier of foreign exchange earnings in the country.

“In the next two years, we will be exporting about 16,000 tonnes of fertiliser. When you talk about 16,000 tonnes of fertiliser, it’s about $6.5m to $7m revenue that will be coming into the country daily. With our export programme, our company will be the major supplier of foreign exchange earnings in Nigeria,” Dangote said.

Africa’s richest man also mentioned that in a few weeks’ time, the company would commence the exportation of coal.

“In the next couple of weeks, we will start exporting coal out of Nigeria. The refinery operations will not export less than 25 million tonnes of various products. We will also be exporting about 600,000 to 700,000 metric tonnes of polypropylene.

So when you are talking about export, we are going to be very big,” he said.

He highlighted the need to work with the NPA on the development of the Marine and Blue Economy sector, with plans to ensure the expansion of Nigeria’s export operations, stressing that, as the biggest customer of the NPA, it is important that the interaction between NPA and DIL is sustained.

“I think this kind of interaction is very important for the growth of the industry. We discussed quite a lot of issues. We also discussed issues of how to deepen the Marine and Blue Economy sector. And we have agreed to work together for the benefit of Nigeria,” he stated.

Dangote explained that the size of their operations at Lekki alone is almost 240 ships of crude, with each ship carrying one million crude.

“And then we will have products which now will amount to over 600 ships in a year. Then we also have our fertiliser operation, which will be loading almost eight ships. This is an operation that has never, ever been seen in the country,” he said.

While underscoring the importance of collaboration with the NPA, Dangote mentioned that the company’s operation would sink if the NPA didn’t give them the required services.

“The NPA will need a lot of support from the Federal Government because they won’t be able to do these things with their own physical hands; they need equipment, and they need more tug boats. We will also be putting in a few words in the necessary quarters to make sure that NPA gets all the necessary assistance from the Federal Government,” he said.

In the area of export, Dangote said, “We will soon be massively expanding our export operations. We are already exporting cement out of Nigeria. We have a whole factory of six million tons for cement export. So the operations of Nigerian ports will double in the next one or two years.”

Earlier, the Managing Director of the NPA, Dr Abubakar Dantsoho, explained that the visit was for Dangote to show appreciation for the dividends of the naira for the crude sale policy of the Federal Government.

“Dangote is here to show appreciation, especially regarding the establishment of the One-Stop-Shop policy on naira for crude deals, which is being coordinated by the NPA. He is here to appreciate that the initiative has contributed immensely to achieving a lot of efficiency in the area of transactions and operations between government agencies,” he said.

Dantsoho explained that since the policy started in October 2024, the agency has operated 57 vessels every month.

“The projected volume that Dangote was looking at per annum was 600 vessels. If you do 56 or 57 vessels in 12 months, you will see that we are already doing bigger than what they projected. We will continue to do our best with support from the government. If all agencies of government can collaborate and be on the same dashboard, then efficiencies in other sectors of the economy will also be witnessed,” Dantsoho stated.

The NPA boss announced that the government has approved the National Single Window, stressing that the NPA is 95 per cent ready for the Port Community System.

On the development of new ports, Dantsoho said, “There are two ways you can handle capacity improvement/expansion, or deepen port capacity. You can do it on a brownfield, which is when you renovate or rehabilitate existing ports, or on a greenfield, which is to build new ports.

“The last time the government built a new port in Nigeria was in 1977, which was the Tincan Island Port. There is already approval for the port modernisation of both Tincan and Apapa ports. We are hopefully looking at maybe the third quarter of this year to commence construction.”