Sable Chemical Industries is an integral part of cog system that enables the agricultural industry to tick in Zimbabwe by producing the much needed Ammonium Nitrate fertilizer, which gives life to the crops in the country. Sable Chemical is currently producing 25 percent which is 36 000 tonnes of ammonium nitrate per year instead of the targeted 160 000 tonnes. This anomaly in the production has been attributed to an array of challenges which include non availability of foreign currency and the need to invest in purchasing new tankers which will enable the company to import and increase volume of ammonium liquid form from South Africa, in order to produce 100 000 tonnes of ammonium nitrate, which will meet the local demand.
Each tanker has the capacity of carrying 25 tonnes of ammonium liquid; currently Sable Chemical has 105 pressurized tankers which import ammonium liquid from South Africa.
“We import one tonne of ammonium liquid to produce 2 tonnes of ammonium nitrate, which is cheaper than producing our own ammonium nitrate using electrolysis, which has a high consumption of electricity. We also use local raw materials, magnetite from Kadoma. We are facing some challenges in importing ammonium as we can not meet the demand on the local market, but in three years we are geared to export to foreign markets. Our prices match any other distributor. Our fertilizer is not expensive”, said Bothwell Nyajeka CEO of Sable Chemical.
He also said the company need to operate non stop in order to meet local demand as we produce 300 tonnes per day from the plant non stop. There is need for the availability of foreign currency throughout the year in order to have production all year round. Nyajeka pointed that the company needs $2.2 million per month to import ammonium nitrate, but they are getting $1 million per month.
