Yara and Qafco Claim World's largest Fertilizer Plant with $550 Million Qatar Plant Opening

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Researched by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources, Incorporated; Houston, Texas). With the opening of the fourth expansion of the Qafco (Qatar Fertilizer Company) (PEC 98890022) fertilizer plant in Qatar, the project that started as a cooperative venture between Norsk Hydro (NYSE:NHY) (Oslo, Norway) and Qafco in 1968 became the world's largest single site plant in its sector.

Yara International (OSLO:YARA) was set up as a separate entity from Hydro in 2003 to run the agri business of the Norwegian group and in its standalone capacity is the world's largest supplier of mineral fertilizer and has a 6% share of the global market. Now with Qafco it has participated in the $550 million expansion and will continue to develop projects in the Emirate.

The expansion project includes an ammonia plant and a urea plant with a daily capacity of 2,000 and 3,000 tons respectively plus support facilities. Qafco-4 will boost the project's ammonia production by 50% and the urea production by 65%, bringing Qafco's annual production capacity to 2 million tons of ammonia and 2.8 million tons of urea. The new facilities also boast the world's largest granulation unit, which is based on Yara's technology, and the world's largest bulk store for urea, with a capacity of 160,000 tons. The capacity of the ammonia tank is 45,000 tons.

Yara and Qafco have supported each of the four expansions, providing both technology and personnel with experience in construction and operations. ThyssenKrupp group (XETRA:TKAG) company Uhde (Dortmund, Germany) (PEC 98890057/68/69) has performed the construction on plants 3 and 4. Plant 1 came on stream in 1973, 2 in 1979 and 3 in 1997. Qafco is owned 25% by Yara and 75% by Industries of Qatar. Yara has a marketing contract for 50% of the urea produced by Qafco.

"We believe that Qafco-4 will further strengthen our fertilizer business and create an even better foundation for future growth," said Thorlief Enger, CEO of Yara when the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Bib Khalifa Al-Thani in the last week of April, opened the plant.

Yara International claims to be the world's largest supplier of plant nutrition and employs 7,700 people in more than 50 countries. In 2003 the company sold more than 20 million metric tons of fertilizer to customers in more than 120 countries. Operating income in 2003 was $407 million on operating revenues of $5,572 billion.

Qatar has a total population of 800,000 of which about 560,000 are not Qatari citizens but foreign contract workers and residents. The 240,000 native Qataris claim to have the highest per head average income in the world.