Key Takeaways
- AFC is providing $600 million toward Dangote’s $7 billion fertiliser expansion
- Nigeria’s urea capacity will triple while a new plant rises in Ethiopia
- Africa still consumes far less fertiliser per capita than India or China
Africa Finance Corporation is backing a $7 billion fertiliser expansion programme led by Dangote Group, designed to triple production capacity in Nigeria and establish a new manufacturing platform in Ethiopia. AFC announced the development in a statement on Monday in Lagos.
As a cornerstone commitment to the programme, AFC is providing a $600 million facility to Greenview Fertiliser Corp, Dangote’s fertiliser holding company. Africa currently imports a large share of its fertiliser despite sitting on some of the world’s largest natural gas reserves and roughly a quarter of the world’s uncultivated arable land.
That dependence leaves the continent’s food systems exposed every time global supply chains are disrupted, as they have been repeatedly in recent years. The transaction deepens AFC’s longstanding partnership with Dangote Group, building on its role as Co-Coordinating Bank on a $3 billion syndicated loan for Dangote Refinery and the recent full repayment of its foundational $300 million senior term loan to Dangote Industries Limited.
AFC President and CEO Samaila Zubairu framed the investment as central to the continent’s food security.
“The question before Africa is simple: how will we feed 2.5 billion people by 2050?” he said.
The scale of the expansion
Dangote’s expansion programme is projected to increase urea fertiliser production capacity in Nigeria from 3 million metric tonnes per annum to 9 million metric tonnes, while adding a new 3 million metric tonne urea fertiliser plant in Ethiopia.
The combined effect would make Dangote’s fertiliser business one of the largest single producers of urea anywhere in the world.
The Nigerian facility, located in the Dangote Industries Free Zone in Ibeju-Lekki, Lagos, currently operates as Africa’s largest granulated urea fertiliser plant, serving both domestic and international markets.
The new Ethiopian plant marks Dangote’s first major fertiliser manufacturing presence outside Nigeria, extending the company’s industrial footprint deeper into East Africa.
Why the investment gap matters
The scale of Africa’s underconsumption of fertiliser is stark when placed next to other large, populous regions.
Zubairu noted that Africa’s 1.5 billion people consume just 6 million tonnes of urea annually, compared to 40 million tonnes in India and 50 million tonnes in China, despite the regions having similarly sized populations.
Closing that gap, he said, is essential to improving crop yields and reducing the continent’s reliance on imported agricultural inputs. AFC said the expansion positions Africa to address structural pressures including rapid population growth, rising food demand, and climate-related strain on agricultural systems, while strengthening the continent’s position as a fertiliser exporter to international markets.
How the financing fits AFC’s broader strategy
The $600 million commitment follows a pattern AFC has used before with Dangote Group.
AFC’s model involves providing early-stage risk capital to transformative projects, then recycling that capital into the next phase once assets reach stable, cash-generative operations, a process the corporation says it is now repeating at double the scale of its original Dangote Industries loan.
AFC had previously partnered with Access Bank in 2024 to provide Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals FZE’s first working capital facility, supporting crude procurement for commissioning and initial production. Aliko Dangote, President and Chief Executive of Dangote Industries Limited, said the financing reflects continued confidence in the group’s industrial ambitions. “
AFC has consistently supported Dangote Group at critical stages of our growth, and its renewed commitment reflects confidence in our vision to build globally competitive African industrial platforms,” he said.
No completion date has been given for either the Nigerian expansion or the new Ethiopian plant.
