Morocco: OCP increases profits and investments
Despite weakening global demand for exports, Morocco’s posphate mining sector has seen a promising first half to 2012, buoyed by gradually rising commodities prices.
Source : https://www.marocafrik.com/english/Morocco-OCP-inc...
In fact, the first four months of the year has seen the sector’s profits gradually increase, with a positive outlook for the rest of the year as a wave of new upstream and downstream facilities break ground writes Oxford Business Group (OBG)
Morocco has three-quarters of known reserves of Phosphate in the world. The mining sector plays a key role in Morocco’s trade mix, representing nearly 21% of export earnings and employing almost 40,000 people.
It contributes up to 6% of GDP and generates investments of more than €360m OBG says.
Despite fluctuations in global commodity prices, phosphate mining operations, which represent 95% of mining exports, have suffered only slightly due to a decrease in international demand. Moroccan phosphate production reached a total of 5.9m tonnes in the first quarter of 2012, a 10.7% decline over the same period in 2011, the article says.
Profits have increased: from January through April, Morocco saw earnings for phosphates exports jump, totalling Dh4.26bn (€386m), an increase of 15.7% over the Dh3.68bn (€333m) earned during the same period in 2011, according to the state-owned Foreign Exchange Office (FEO).
Office Chérifien des Phosphates (OCP), the national state-run phosphate-mining company profits increased to €957.78m in the three months ending March 2012, compared to the €896.27m in the same period of 2011.
The value of exports is increasing despite decling volumes and OCP is maintaing its investment in its industry to increase output, with the help of a new €200m loan from the African Development Bank. The loan will be used to build an industrial facility in the coastal town of Jorf Lasfar, located 110 km southwest of Casablanca.
The development will eventually include several chemical plants and will increase Morocco’s ability to process locally mined raw phosphate into value-added derivatives, such as phosphoric acid and fertiliser. Four new mines are expected to be completed and operational by 2017, as well as four new fertiliser plants, which will enable Morocco to triple its fertiliser output to 9m tonnes by 2020. The company has also recently begun construction of a new phosphate washing plant in El Halassa, worth around €227m. The project, which aims to increase productivity at the local Khouribga mine, will make it the largest facility of its kind in the world, OBG concludes.
Other investment projects include the installation of the largest phosphate transport system in the world and chemical plants at Jorf Lasfar and Safi, as well as expanding the industrial complex at Jorf Lasfar to ten platforms.
Government forecasts have predicted that growth in the mining sector will likely ride out the recent global downturn with minimal difficulty, and steadily increase until 2016 at an average of 3.1%.
Morocco has three-quarters of known reserves of Phosphate in the world. The mining sector plays a key role in Morocco’s trade mix, representing nearly 21% of export earnings and employing almost 40,000 people.
It contributes up to 6% of GDP and generates investments of more than €360m OBG says.
Despite fluctuations in global commodity prices, phosphate mining operations, which represent 95% of mining exports, have suffered only slightly due to a decrease in international demand. Moroccan phosphate production reached a total of 5.9m tonnes in the first quarter of 2012, a 10.7% decline over the same period in 2011, the article says.
Profits have increased: from January through April, Morocco saw earnings for phosphates exports jump, totalling Dh4.26bn (€386m), an increase of 15.7% over the Dh3.68bn (€333m) earned during the same period in 2011, according to the state-owned Foreign Exchange Office (FEO).
Office Chérifien des Phosphates (OCP), the national state-run phosphate-mining company profits increased to €957.78m in the three months ending March 2012, compared to the €896.27m in the same period of 2011.
The value of exports is increasing despite decling volumes and OCP is maintaing its investment in its industry to increase output, with the help of a new €200m loan from the African Development Bank. The loan will be used to build an industrial facility in the coastal town of Jorf Lasfar, located 110 km southwest of Casablanca.
The development will eventually include several chemical plants and will increase Morocco’s ability to process locally mined raw phosphate into value-added derivatives, such as phosphoric acid and fertiliser. Four new mines are expected to be completed and operational by 2017, as well as four new fertiliser plants, which will enable Morocco to triple its fertiliser output to 9m tonnes by 2020. The company has also recently begun construction of a new phosphate washing plant in El Halassa, worth around €227m. The project, which aims to increase productivity at the local Khouribga mine, will make it the largest facility of its kind in the world, OBG concludes.
Other investment projects include the installation of the largest phosphate transport system in the world and chemical plants at Jorf Lasfar and Safi, as well as expanding the industrial complex at Jorf Lasfar to ten platforms.
Government forecasts have predicted that growth in the mining sector will likely ride out the recent global downturn with minimal difficulty, and steadily increase until 2016 at an average of 3.1%.
Source : https://www.marocafrik.com/english/Morocco-OCP-inc...