Battling hunger with more fertiliser
For experts, the key to tackling hunger is enriching the soil and fertiliser can make a profound difference. To this end, the continent is going to take delivery of ammonia fertiliser plants. DANIEL ESSIET writes that the plants will deliver food sector and economic growth.
The demand for food is expected to soar with the population forecast to rise by 2030. Analysts said producing more food for a growing population, while at the same time combating poverty and hunger, is a huge challenge facing African agriculture.
Despite a promised agricultural revolution in Sub-Saharan Africa, according to the International Fertiliser Association (IFA), productivity unfortunately remains low in the region. Maize output, for example, is around a sixth of the United States (US) despite a similar amount of land being used.
As a result, yields are meagre. For instance, Nature, an international weekly journal of science, observed that by farming intensively without replenishing soil nutrients, farmers across sub-Saharan Africa, have lost an average of 22 kilogrammes of nitrogen, 2.5 kilograms of phosphorus, and 15 kilograms of potassium per hectare annually over the past 30 years — the yearly equivalent of $4 billions’ worth of fertiliser.
Similarly, in many parts of Nigeria and the rest of Africa, according to reports, degradation has made the soil deficient in key nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus. As populations surge, there is increased need of solutions to feeding people.
Experts agreed that one clear way to improve farm yields is to increase fertiliser use, in combination with other essential inputs such as improved seeds.
With much of Nigeria’s soils gradually becoming nutrient deficient, from decades of farming, fertiliser cannot only boost productivity but also restore much needed soil fertility, helping to stop soil erosion.
The Fertiliser Suppliers and Producers Association of Nigeria (FESPAN) Executive Secretary, Mr Gideon Negedu, said fertiliser is undoubtedly vital to countering soil degradation and improving the nation’s agricultural potential.
To this end, Nigeria and some countries in Africa are going to take delivery of ammonia fertiliser plants.
The Togolese government and Aliko Dangote Industries, announced a partnership to develop a phosphate fertiliser processing industry in Togo.
Mining development work is expected to begin soon.
The two parties are complementary. Togo is one of Africa’s leading phosphate producers: the country has more than two billion tons of phosphate in its subsoil.
The Dangote Group will be able to rely on its future ammonia and urea plant based in Ibeju-Lekki (Lagos), expected to be commissioned next year.
“Ammonia is an essential ingredient in the conversion of phosphate into phosphate fertilisers derived from phosphates,” Dangote said in a statement, adding that “Togo will provide access to phosphate resources and the Dangote Group will provide access to ammonia and the Nigerian market.”
The growing demand for food and therefore fertiliser means that ammonia production needs to increase by three per cent each year, according to Siemens International report.
Moroccan phosphate producer, OCP Group, expects its planned $1.3 billion ammonia plant in Nigeria to start producing in late 2023.
The plant will be built in the Southeast where gas suppliers have been identified, the Managing Director, OCP Nigeria, Mr. Mohammed Hettiti, said.
The factory is part of OCP’s push to step up investment in phosphates-based fertiliser in Africa. It has plans to set up other plants in Ethiopia and Ghana.
The factory, with annual production capacity of 750,000 tonnes of ammonia and 1 million tonnes of fertiliser, would export ammonia to Morocco’s plant in Jorf Lasfar, while Morocco would supply phosphoric acid to make fertiliser, he said.
OCP, which already supplies more than 90 per cent of the nation’s fertiliser demand, signed a protocol agreement in June last year to build the plant with Nigeria’s Sovereign Investment Authority.
Hettiti said OCP aimed to boost fertiliser supply to Nigeria to three million tonnes from one million tonnes in the next five years.
The Agricultural School, Mohammed VI Polytechnic University is training Nigerians and other partners in fertiliser best management practices and is setting up an experimental farm in Yamoussoukro in Côte d’Ivoire to create tailor-made solutions adapted to the diversity of African soils.
Ammonia market outlook
There is a substantial industrial market for ammonia. Ammonia Market is anticipated to reach $ 70.75 billion by the end of 2025, according to a report published by Market Research Future.
The grossing factors that kept the global ammonia market to expand at a fast pace are accounted to be the increasing population, rising disposable income, mainly in developing regions that are triggering the demand for agricultural products. The majority of ammonia produced is used for the production of fertiliser.
According to experts, ammonia is the key intermediate for all nitrogen fertiliser products and large nitrogen-consuming countries are also large producers of ammonia.
Producers of the main phosphate fertiliser, import ammonia, as the regions with phosphate reserves such as Morocco and Togo often lack nitrogen capacity.
The large ammonia exporters in the world have access to competitively priced natural gas, the key raw material for its production. Because of this, Nigeria has potential to become a major ammonia exporter with its large natural gas reserves.
Trinidad is the largest exporter of ammonia. It has large natural gas reserves and also lies in close proximity to the world’s largest importer of ammonia, the US. Trinidad has large stand-alone ammonia plants and excellent maritime facilities that cater for export markets.
OCP is the world’s largest exporter of phosphate fertiliser. Ammonia is an important input to OCP’s finished fertiliser products, such as monoammonium phosphate (MAP) or diammonium phosphate (DAP), and a producer as large as OCP measures its ammonia consumption in millions of tonnes per year.
OCP Africa has signed a partnership to get ammonia from Nigeria.
Environmental Impact
While fertiliser is essential in boosting the plant growth and crop nutrition, there is also an environmental impact that needs to be addressed.
According to reports, agricultural air pollution comes mainly in the form of ammonia, which enters the air as gases from fertilisation products which are prone to volatilisation.
Siemens International report said Ammonia is made using the Haber-Bosch process, converting hydrogen and nitrogen using high temperature.
For this reason, ammonia production relies on fossil fuels such as natural gas. Together with the fossil hydrogen feedstock, current ammonia production accounts for almost 1.5 per cent of global CO2 emissions. As such it is the largest industrial greenhouse gas emitter.
RAND Europe, an independent not-for-profit research institute, said ammonia could have significant effects on both human health and the natural environment as its emissions negatively affect biodiversity.
Green Ammonia Plants to the rescue
There is a global drive to demonstrate green ammonia plants and, thereby, to begin developing a market for green ammonia.
To contain emission, there are increasing studies to establish green ammonia plants across the world.
The studies aim to determine the technical and economic feasibility of producing renewable ammonia at a commercial scale, and down the track progress the commercialisation of renewable hydrogen production for both domestic and international use.
Ammonia production is the largest user of hydrogen, consuming half of total global hydrogen supplied production, and in the process accounting for 1 per cent of global emissions.
Experts said as ammonia already uses hydrogen, ammonia production at large scale is an ideal opportunity to begin exploring the pathway to lowering emissions through the use of renewable hydrogen as it already uses hydrogen in an industrial application, and has existing supply chains and end users.
Experts believe the shift to renewable energy brings all-round benefits to the economy. Siemens is one of several companies involved in a number of Green Ammonia demonstration projects. One is a £1.5 million pilot project at England, designed to produce 30 kg/day of ammonia. Siemens is collaborating on a demonstration plant off the island of Goeree-Overflakkee in the Netherlands.
In April last year, a green ammonia pilot plant began operations in Fukushima,Japan. This project is part of the Green Ammonia Consortium, which launched as a closed organization in July 2017 in preparation for its global launch in April this year.
Current members include industry heavyweights like Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, IHI Corporation, Ube Industries, Mitsui Chemicals, and Marubeni Corporation, among others. Green ammonia pilot plants have started operations in the UK and new demonstration plants have been announced in Australia, Denmark, Morocco, and the Netherlands.
OCP Group announced plans to develop green hydrogen and green ammonia as sustainable raw materials for use in fertiliser production. This includes building pilot plants in both Germany, already under construction, and Morocco, , as well as “the possible establishment of an African Institute for Solar Ammonia. “Responsibility for the environment has always been important to us, not just when working in our mines, but as a fundamental principle of our circular economy approach. The use of Green Ammonia fits in with this strategy. It can help conserve valuable resources and provide our customers with sustainable new products,” the Chairman, OCP, Mostafa Terrab, was quoted on OCP’s Green Ammonia pilot plant, and the African Institute for Solar Ammonia. Now, through its new cooperation agreement with the Fraunhofer Institute for Microstructure of Materials and Systems, in Germany, and its ongoing partnership with the Moroccan Institute for Research in Solar Energy and New Energies (IRESEN), OCP is establishing itself as a leader in the development of green ammonia.
The Memorandum of Understanding provides for continued cooperation with the aim of boosting the use of renewable raw materials in the fertilizer industry. The focus is on two raw materials: Green Hydrogen, which is obtained by electrolysis using electricity from renewable energies, and which can be further processed into numerous products for the fertilizer industry; and Green Ammonia, consisting of Green Hydrogen and nitrogen, which can serve as a raw material for the production of fertilizers, amongst other uses.
According to experts, if OCP enacts these plans, this will be the first green ammonia pilot plant in Africa.