The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC) and its Shell Petroleum Development Company Limited (SPDC) joint venture including TotalEnergies and Nigeria Agip Oil Company (NAOC) an Eni company in Nigeria on Wednesday sealed deal with Dangote Fertiliser Limited on gas sale and purchase to increase local production of fertiliser in the country.
The gas aggregation agreement was signed in Abuja on the sideline of the ongoing 5th Nigeria International Energy Summit (NIES 2022) with the theme “Revitalising the Industry: Future Fuels and Energy Transition”.
The partners for the phase two fertiliser plant include Dangote Fertiliser Limited, Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), ENI, Gas Aggregation Company of Nigeria (GACN), Nigeria Agip Oil Company and TotalEnergies.
The Group Managing Director, NNPC, Malam Mele Kyari, during the signing ceremony said the deal was part of its drive to ensure greater utilisation of gas in the country by way of conversion or monetisation in the form of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG).
Kyari said NNPC had progressed its engagement with Dangote Group so that the SPDC joint venture, which comprised of NNPC, Shell, ENI and TotalEnergies to deliver 70 million cubic of gas to phase two Dangote plant.
This, he said would no doubt increase gas in the domestic market.
“But more importantly, it is a platform that will enable increase local production of fertiliser in our country.
“As you may be aware, it is government drive to ensure that we become self-sufficient in the production of fertiliser in the country and specifically for this year’s zero import of fertilisation in the country.
“Currently Dangote Group provides about 65 per cent of all domestic production of fertilizer and we are happy to sign the Gas Supply Agreement with them,” the GMD said.
In his remarks, Managing Director and Chairman Shell Companies in Nigeria, Mr Osagie Okunbor, thanked the joint team that had worked extremely hard to sign this gas aggregation agreement.
“It is huge important to this country because already Dangote produces the bulk of fertiliser in this country and we know how important the subject of agriculture is and for not just energy security, but also food security.
“This is why all of us on the SPDC JV led by the NNPC but also with my colleagues in TotalEnergies really pleased to be able to execute this agreement,” he said.
Also speaking, Chairman, Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, thanked NNPC GMD for his effort in actualising the signing of the agreement.
Dangote said the additional gas would bring in more foreign exchange into the country in view of the energy crisis.
He said apart from Egypt no other African country has our capacity, adding that it would meet with domestic market and export and at least 1.8 billion dollars in term of foreign exchange coming into the country’
