ZAMBIA – Zambian industrial development investment firm, Wonderful Group of Companies, has completed phase one of its US$300m United Capital Fertilizer Manufacturing Plant.

Phase two of the project is still underway and once complete, the facility will have a production capacity of 135, 000 metric tonnes per annum for fertilizer and 80,000 metric tonnes per annum for ammonia bicarbonate.

One of the production lines, according to reports by Zambia Business Times, will be using coal sourced locally as one of the raw materials for the production of fertilizer.

In addition, it has been designed to have a robust and state of the art integrated cross-circuit production process such that there will be no emission of either smoke or gasses adding that the smoke will be converted into a gas by-product, for which the company already has a captive market.

Establishment of the plant is set to cut importation of fertilizer by about 60% and reduce the cost of fertilizer by about 40% due to use of local raw materials and economies of scale.

It would be able to supply 80% of the total percentage of urea demand and 60% of the total percentage of D compound required in the country.

The raw materials, which include coal and phosphate, will be acquired locally in Southern Province and once fully operational, the plant will create about 1,100 direct jobs.

The new plant would be producing ammonia as a by-product, therefore there will be no need to continue importing from South Africa, thus boosting the production for local companies such as NCZ.

Zambia has been importing its bulk fertilizer to meet its growing land under cultivation. However, prices of the essential commodity had escalated following the depreciation of the local currency, contributing to sky rocketing food prices.

To finance the project, the company sourced 60% of the investment funds from financial institutions outside Zambia with 40% was sourced locally.

From the total amount, US$20 million is working capital for the first two years as per draft cash flows.

In other related news, construction of Katete Fruit Processing plant in Katete District is nearing completion.

The plant will process a wide array of fruits such as mangoes, oranges, guavas, watermelons and tomatoes, among others.

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