Egypt seeks new investments for phosphate projects

Egypt aims to attract fresh investments into its phosphate industry to tap its massive deposits of such a substance, a newspaper reported on Friday.

Companies affiliated to the Oil and Mineral Resources Ministry are working to identify new phosphate-rich areas and determine Egypt’s reserves, which are known at around 90 million tonnes, the Arabic language daily Addustour said.

But unproven reserves could be as high as 30 billion tonnes and this has prompted the Ministry to see fresh domestic and foreign capital for phosphates projects, the paper said, quoting Ministry sources.

According to the paper, Egypt is currently ranked the world’s 10th largest raw phosphates producer and that new reserves estimates could be released this year.

It said Egypt produced nearly 6 million tonnes of phosphates in 2022 and that 3.5 million tones of them were exported to 12 countries, including Lebanon, Turkey, France, Australia, Poland, Romania, India, Spain and Brazil.

“The Ministry is now trying to attract new investments to exploit the massive quantities of phosphates in Egypt…projects could cover phosphates industries such as phosphate fertilizers besides drugs, insecticides, glass, ceramics, and steel,” a source said.