Notore Wins Ernst & Young Award, Records Highest Urea Production

The Group CEO of Notore Chemical Industries Limited, Mr. Jite Okoloko recently won the award for the Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year in the West African region by Ernst & Young ahead of nine other finalists in the category, after a rigorous screening process that spanned over several months. Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year is considered the world’s most prestigious business award for entrepreneurs.

During the award ceremony that took place in Lagos, Mr. Henry Egbiki, West Africa Regional Managing Partner for Ernst & Young, explained that the winners in each region were determined by their contributions to the economic development of their countries. He also added that winners were selected by an independent panel of judges set up for that purpose.

Commenting on the award, Mr. Okoloko said, "Entrepreneurs who have identified viable business opportunities should be encouraged to focus their attention on making their ideas succeed. With this award, the whole workforce at Notore has been recognized for our goal of increasing crop yields to guarantee food security in Africa, while also encouraging skills acquisition and creating jobs. Today, we are producing about 90 per cent of the fertilizer in Sub Saharan Africa, and we hope to expand our business further to achieve our ambition."

Notore also recently achieved the highest Urea and Ammonia production since the company commenced production when it reached a record 1,348 MT per day of Urea and 893 MT per day of Ammonia during the month of November 2011 thus hitting total production marks of 36,544 MT of Urea and 22,965 MT of Ammonia for the month.

These significant records, according to the Group CEO of Notore, came after carrying out a successful scheduled turnaround maintenance in August and September 2011. “The plant has since begun to experience improved performance and increased consistency of operations. We had said that our production would jump from 1100 metric tons to 1400 metric tons by end of June this year and here we are. It is indeed a record that Notore is very proud of and we are working hard to sustain and improve on it,” Okoloko said.

Notore was profiled recently by Forbes as one of “Africa's Most Outstanding Companies” for being one of the companies that are constantly providing audacious and innovative solutions to some of the continent’s most daunting challenges. According to Forbes, “Seven out of ten Africans earn their living from farming. Yet, even at this time of high unemployment, farming remains a low-input and low-output enterprise, unpopular with the young – a critical imbalance which Notore aims to redress with education programs and training.”

Currently, the Notore fertiliser plant is the only urea fertiliser plant in Sub-Saharan Africa thus making Notore perfectly positioned to become Africa’s major fertiliser supplier. By making fertiliser more available to farmers, Notore is helping to reduce hunger and increase food security on the continent.