Yara Business in Africa

Africa constitutes an integral part of Yara's global presence and market outreach, with sales to large parts of the continent, and production in the north. Our relations with Africa and knowledge of African agriculture have been further strengthened by our involvement in advocating and promoting the African Green Revolution (AGR), including the partnerships projects and corridor initiatives resulting from this engagement.

Yara’s sales to Africa mainly consist of mineral fertilizer, with some industrial products. Fertilizer sales in 2009 amounted to 1.6 million tons, with total revenues of NOK 5,7 billion, amounting to about 8 per cent of our total fertilizer sales that year.

Yara's operation in Africa mainly consists of the production at the two plants in Egypt and Libya, which organizationally belongs to our Upstream segment. The sales and marketing organizations belong to the Downstream segment, constituting Business Unit Africa.  

We currently have sales offices in seven countries, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, Cameroon and Côte d'Ivoire. 

Initially, the expanding business in Africa was headed by a unit at the Oslo headquarters before being relocated to Paris, transferred to Johannesburg, and finally merged with the South Africa office in 2010. 

In parts of Eastern Africa, the Yara Viking ship logo has become a household nickname - 'Chapa Meli' - Swahili for 'ship's brand.'

Established as Norsk Hydro in 1905 and demerged as Yara in 2004, our business relations with Africa were initiated by Hydro, and especially active since the 1980s. The first shipment of mineral fertilizer was to Egypt in 1929. Sales to Sub-Saharan Africa were largely linked to development aid - fertilizers given as gifts by donor countries to African states, especially in East Africa. 

Following a number of acquisitions in the 1970s and 1980s, not least that of Dutch NSM in 1979, the company gained what became the backbone of our current extensive marketing and sales network of offices and agents throughout Africa. Through acquisition of European fertilizer companies, Hydro also became a partner in production companies in Zimbabwe.

This, and considerations of future market development - not least further south - spurred the establishment of an office for Southern and Eastern Africa in Harare, Zimbabwe in 1985. Later, a branch office was opened in Nairobi, Kenya, in 1991 and another in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1996.  

In 1985, Hydro acquired a share in a local company in Côte d'Ivoire, establishing Hydrochem - a blending plant serving the West African market. Still in existence, the operation has slowed down following the civil war there. Yara Ghana was established in 2007, and is the leading importer, blender and marketer of fertilizers in that market.