Turkey top envoy goes to Niger in bid to secure uranium supplies
The trip comes after Niger’s military government withdrew mining rights from Canadian and French companies to develop uranium deposits.
The deal will give African Potash, which wants to become a one-stop shop African fertilizer business, a platform to distribute the product across eastern and southern Africa.
Shares in African Potash (LON:AFPO) jumped Friday after the miner announced it has sealed a deal to sell 50,000 metric tonnes (MT) of its fertilizer product to a Zambian distributor in the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) for $500 a tonne.
The stock was up 2.5% at 3.625p in early trading, a fresh 12-month high, and traded around 2.9p mid-afternoon in London on the news.
This is the third supply deal the sub-Sahara focused company, which wants to become a one-stop shop African fertilizer business, secures in less than a month.
“We are delighted to have concluded negotiations [that will see delivery of] both NPK and UREA fertilizers in Zambia at a price that supports the growth and development of the African farmer,” executive chairman Chris Cleverly said in a statement.
African Potash, which also owns the Lac Dinga project in the Republic of Congo, plans to create a vertically integrated operator that has the mining, processing and marketing skills to tap into a region that buys in an estimated 10 million tonnes of fertilizer a year.
Africa is one the most important markets for fertilizers, having the potential to increase the value of its annual agricultural output to $500 billion by 2020 according to the African Development Bank (ADB).
