Rabat – Morocco’s OCP and Spain’s Fertinagro Biotech company recently announced they created a joint venture company to produce enhanced fertilizer.
The new company will produce “granular high analysis [nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium] NPK as well as fertilizers enhanced with urease inhibitors, bio-stimulants and trace elements (micronutrients), to address the international market,” OCP said in a statement January 24.
The new venture comes two months after one of OCP’s subsidiaries acquired 20 percent of the shares in Fertinagro Biotech in October last year.
OCP Group, one of the leading exporters and producers of phosphate-based fertilizers in the world, announced on October 23 that it obtained all required regulatory approvals and Fertinagro’s shareholders approved the acquisition.
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Named “OCP-Fertinagro Advanced Solutions,” the 50-50 joint venture will be located in Jorf Lasfar, 120 kilometers south of Casablanca, and will have “an initial annual capacity of 250,000 tons of specialty NPK fertilizers by 2020.”
The company will receive “up to 1 million tons of further ranges of enhanced plant nutrition solutions” with “advisory services to farmers, capitalizing on both companies deep experiences in the field.”
Marouane Ameziane, an executive vice-president at OCP Group, said that the venture “anchors the ambition of both partners to sustainably address the growing demand in enhanced and ‘technology’ fertilizers, and to expand their offerings to farmers worldwide, in terms of customized products and services.”
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OCP and Fertinagro seek to “combine industrial flexibility and competitiveness with innovation and agronomic services for farmers,” said Jose Luis Moya, general manager at Fertinagro Biotech.
Both companies will “develop new industries, products and solutions in agriculture with a global joint vision to achieve a more sustainable world,” Luis Moya added.
Fertinagro is a major Spanish fertilizer company which produces and commercializes plant nutrition solutions. It is also known for its “product development capabilities” and “biotech application.”
