Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest man, has revealed his new fertilizer facility in the commercial capital of Nigeria, will start exporting products to the US and south America soon. Despite the fact that the majority of the exports are slated for Brazil, Dangote said at a virtual summit on Tuesday that the plant’s first shipment will be in late June or early July to Louisiana, in the US.

The plant, which is located in the commercial capital’s Lekki Free Zone enclave, is designed to manufacture 3 million tonnes of urea each year.

It will also be able to deliver products to all of Sub-Saharan Africa’s major markets, according to Dangote.

“Aside from meeting domestic demand, we will be able to earn a significant amount of money exporting items to South American countries,” he stated.

In Nigeria, the factory is planned to provide fertilizers to Africa’s most populous country’s huge agric fields, helping to alleviate the country’s recurring low crop yields, which are mostly due to a lack of fertilisers.

According to the World Bank, Nigeria used roughly 20 kilograms of fertilizer per hectare of arable land in 2018, compared to 73 kilograms in South Africa and 393 kilograms in China.

In the meantime, as part of a slew of measures aimed at promoting domestic production, the Central Bank of Nigeria has banned the use of its foreign exchange for fertiliser imports.

The plant which officially commenced operation earlier this month  was built to tap into Nigeria’s demand for fertilizer, a critical component of achieving food sufficiency for Africa’s most populous country.

The factory  is owned by Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest man and  has a name-plate capacity of 3 million tons of urea and ammonia per year, making it the world’s largest.

It’s close to a Dangote oil refinery with a capacity of 650,000 barrels per day, which is also under development.