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Munyaradzi Musiiwa Midlands Bureau
The country’s sole manufacturer of ammonium nitrate (AN), Sable Chemical Industries, which had this year projected to produce more than 100 000 tonnes of AN, has failed to meet its target and only released 30 000 tonnes.

In an interview, Sable Chemicals chief executive Mr Bothwell Nyajeka said they had this year produced 30 000 tonnes, 70 percent less of their target production. Mr Nyajeka said this was due to various reasons, chief among them being foreign currency shortages. He said the company was now targeting producing 40 000 tonnes by year end for the summer cropping season.

The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) recently released foreign currency to Sable to enable the Kwekwe-based company to import ammonia gas, a key component in the production AN.

Mr Nyajeka said the company had received a reasonable amount of foreign currency from RBZ, which enabled a flawless and uninterrupted production of fertiliser towards the end of the year. He said if the situation remained the same, the company would be able to produce 100 000 tonnes of AN next year.

“We are not going to meet our target production of 100 000 which we had projected at the beginning of the year,” he said. “Our target now is 40 000 tonnes because we have failed to get adequate foreign currency on time.

“However, production at Sable Chemical Industries is going on because we received foreign currency from Government and we have since produced 30 000 tonnes of AN for this summer cropping season. We are continuing with production and we hope to produce more before the end of the season.”

Sable Chemicals switched off its electrolysis plant and was importing ammonia from South Africa that would be fed into the AN manufacturing plant, which has the energy consumption capacity of 10 megawatts (MW).

The electrolysis plant would need at least 115MW.