Qatar Fertiliser Company (Qafco) has signed a supply deal with a Jordanian firm, its first major export pact since the start-up of its fourth plant in April.

Qafco will supply 130,000 tonnes of ammonia annually to Jordan Phosphate Mines Company (JPMC), a development Qafco managing director Khalifa Abdulla Al Sowaidi said would help his company penetrate the Jordanian market.
Al Sowaidi said Qafco had customers already tied up for ammonia and other products including urea.  Long-term offtake arrangements for about 70 per cent of Qafco’s ammonia production had already been concluded. Similar agreements for urea had been finalised.
Qafco currently produces about two million tonnes of ammonia and 2.8 million tonnes of urea annually in four plants.
Qafco-4 was built by German engineering company Krupp-Uhde at a cost of $535 million. The ammonia segment of the plant has a production capacity of 2,000 tonnes per day and the urea segment 3,200 tonnes per day. With the new facilities, ammonia and urea production jumped 50 per cent and 65 per cent respectively
With the  new plant complex, Qafco has become the world’s largest single-site producer of urea
The company recently procured a new ammonia vessel Al Maroona from Qatar Shipping Company (Q-Ship) on a long-term basis.
Qafco reported a net profit of QR599.2 million ($163.1 million) for 2003, the largest profit figure in its history, outstripping the budget estimate by 220 per cent and the previous year’s earnings by 151 per cent.
The general assembly recommended the distribution of QR500 million as dividend to shareholders.
In 2003, Qatar Petroleum transferred its shareholding in Qafco to Industries of Qatar (IQ).  Shareholder Norsk Hydro split up its fertiliser business from the parent company to be run under a new name called Yara International. Qafco is now jointly owned by IQ, 75 per cent, and Yara International, 25 per cent.
Total ammonia production for 2003 reached 1.44 million tonnes, up 1.6 per cent over 2002, while the urea production at 1.78 million tonnes was 2.5 tonnes more than in the previous year.
Ammonia exports amounted to 424,886 tonnes, 4.7 per cent higher than the 2002 figure. Sixty-nine per cent of the shipments went to India, the remainder going to the US, South Korea, South Africa, Jordan, Brazil, Taiwan, Morocco and France.
Urea exports were 1.8 million tonnes, up seven per cent over 2002.  The US took 24 per cent of the exports and Thailand 16 per cent. Other importers were South Africa, Vietnam, the Philippines, Australia, Sri Lanka, Japan, India, New Zealand, South Korea and other countries.
Also last year, the company completed the urea formaldehyde-85 plant as part of the Qafco-4 project. UFC-85 is an anti-caking agent with which urea is treated to prevent lumping, improve the product hardness and ensure its free flow. It has several other industrial uses.  Qafco used to import UFC-85 to meet its needs.