Moroccan state-owned fertilizer and phosphate exporter OCP Group has raised USD 1.75 bn (c. MAD 16.2 bn) in a dual-tranche Eurobond issuance, Morocco World News reported on Sunday. The funds are reportedly earmarked for raising capacity, upgrading facilities, and developing the company’s worldwide environmental initiatives.

The details: The issuance — which was 4x oversubscribed — is divided into two tranches, with the first comprising USD 1 bn (c. MAD 9.3 bn) in bonds at an 11-year tenor, and the second tranche covering the remaining USD 750 mn (MAD 6.9 bn) with a five-year tenor.

Not their first: OCP raised USD 2 bn through a dual-tranche Eurobond last year to support the company’s USD 13 bn strategy to transition its industrial processes entirely to renewable energy by 2027.

In context: Morocco is the world’s top exporter of phosphate-based fertilizers, with the country controlling about a quarter of the USD 3 bn global market share in 2023, according to data from the Observatory of Economic Complexity. Phosphate fertilizers are essential for the world’s food security, with experts citing this affordable fertilizer as being a major force for rising agricultural yields in the last few decades, according to a Middle East Institute (MEI) 2023 report.

About OCP exports: The Moroccan giant — which offers at least 45 fertilizer blends — is at the center of Morocco’s phosphate industry, exporting almost all of its production abroad, according to MEI’s report. In 2020, OCP dominated 60% of the US market and over half of Africa’s, with its exports accounting for 20% of the country’s total exports that year, the report added.

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