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QAFCO’s bustling fertiliser export facilities.

With more mouths to feed around the world every year, demand for fertiliser will remain firm. Right now the Middle East is emerging as its largest global production hub.

The chemical fertilisers industry plays a central role in literally feeding the world’s ever-growing agricultural demands. By increasing the production of food for the survival of both man and beast, fertiliser producers facilitate food security, with all its obvious essential knock-on effects.

“It is a very important industry for the human race, it is our fuel and it is vital for agriculture,” says Mohamed Al Rashid, general manager of Abu Dhabi’s Ruwais Fertiliser Industries, better known as Fertil.

The basic elements for a chemical fertilisers industry in the Middle East are apparent, with the large amounts of raw materials such as natural gas (mainly methane and sulfur), and phosphate stone.

The fertiliser production industry in the region dates back to the end of the 1960s and was the first downstream industry to be developed in the region. The first company to produce chemical fertilisers in Saudi Arabia was Saudi Arabian Fertilizer Company (SAFCO), now a subsidiary of SABIC, which was commissioned in 1969 with a production capacity of 200 000 t/y of ammonia and 330 000 t/y of prilled urea yearly. A second fertiliser company in Saudi Arabia, Al-Jubail Fertilizer (SAMAD) went on stream in 1983 with a production capacity of 500 000 t/y of urea. The National Chemical Fertilizer Co. (Ibn Al-Baytar) was commissioned in 1989.

SAFCO has since undertaken several capacity expansion programmes, reaching 5.3 million t/y following the start up of SAFCO 4 in April 2007, propelling the company to its current status as one of the largest producers of urea in the world.

A similar story can be found in Qatar, where Qatar Fertilizers Company (QAFCO) was established in 1969. The company has conducted many expansion projects, and today it is the world’s largest single site producer of urea and ammonia, with an annual production capacity of 2 million t/y of ammonia and 2 million t/y of urea. “We currently produce 3 million t/y of fertiliser,” says Yousef Al Kuwari, marketing manager at Qafco. The company is revamping its production capacity to strengthen its position. “Qafco 5 will go on stream in 2011, and Qafco 6 will be in 2012,” he adds.

The region has now become the global hub of the fertiliser sector, recently wrestling the position from Tampa in Florida. The major reasons for this increase in MENA region capacity, especially during the last seven years, is the ample availability of gas, the abundance of raw materials such as potash and phosphate and the high demand of fertiliser in (relatively) nearby South and East Asia.

“The market is there, there is a huge demand on fertiliser from all over the world,” says Dr Abdelhafid Feghouli, vice-president of downstream activities at Sonatrach. The Algerian state energy giant has launched three fertiliser projects in joint ventures with the Egyptian firm Orascom Industries, Suhail Bahwan from Oman, and a third project with the Spanish company Fertiberia.

Ammonia to urea

The ample availability of feedstock in the region, coupled with government strategies to develop agriculture, has pushed Middle Eastern countries to increase their production capacities.

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