The Africa Finance Corporation (AFC) has committed a $600 million financing facility to support a massive $7 billion fertiliser expansion programme by the Dangote Group.
Executed on Monday, 15 June 2026, the cross-border investment is engineered to triple the conglomerate’s agricultural input production capacity in Nigeria and establish a brand-new manufacturing base in Ethiopia to insulate the continent from foreign supply shocks.
The financial credit was extended directly to Greenview Fertiliser Corporation, the dedicated holding company for the Dangote Group’s agro-input assets.
This addresses a structural deficit across Africa, where local farming systems remain vulnerable and heavily dependent on imported synthetic nutrients despite the continent holding a quarter of the world’s uncultivated arable land and vast natural gas reserves.
Under the expansion roadmap, Dangote will scale up granulated urea production at its Ibeju-Lekki complex in Lagos State from 3 million metric tonnes per annum (MTPA) to an extraordinary 9 MTPA, while simultaneously constructing a 3 MTPA greenfield plant in Ethiopia. The transaction highlights the success of the AFC’s unique capital recycling model.
The corporation previously acted as a Co-Coordinating Bank for a $3 billion syndicated refinery loan, and having recently received full repayment of its foundational $300 million senior term loan from Dangote Industries Limited, it has instantly doubled and redeployed that capital into the agribusiness value chain.
The President of the Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, disclosed that the unified 12 MTPA West and East African production platform is structurally projected to generate over $4 billion in annual export revenues within the next three years, significantly boosting Nigeria’s non-oil foreign exchange income.
Underscoring the developmental weight of the partnership, the President and Chief Executive Officer of the AFC, Mr Samaila Zubairu, stated that the intervention builds the necessary infrastructure for Africa to achieve long-term economic sovereignty.
He noted that Africa’s population currently consumes just 6 million tonnes of urea annually, compared to 40 million tonnes in India, making the closing of this productivity gap vital to feeding an estimated 2.5 billion people by 2050.
The project complements the AFC’s broader sub-Saharan portfolio, which focuses on funding strategic transport corridors, industrial processing zones, and deep-water ports to facilitate domestic distribution and international trade.
Source: Tribune Online
