Ethiopia to Export Potash

By Gubae Gundarta

A Canadian company operating in the northeastern Ethiopia’s Afar region known as Alana Potash said its efforts to explore minerals for the production of fertilizers would finally be successful. The vice president of the company, Nejib Ababi said they would start exporting in two years’ time.

According to the veep, there is quite a good deal of accretion that can be made use of for a long time and the present results are encouraging all along the line. He also added, “We are hoping to extract one billion cubic metric tons from an area of 150 square kilometer.”

Further Nejib explained that Ethiopia ranks only next to Jordan when it comes to unearthing Potash with ease. In his words, whereas one might need to excavate as deep as 1000 meters in order to get at potash deposits in countries like Canada and Brazil, in Ethiopia it is possible to get at the deposits only after digging 100 meters into the ground.

Tegenu Bayu, the minister of the Ministry of Mines and Energy of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia as quoted in Bloomberg News said that there is a considerable amount of potash in the region and the government has already planned to construct railroad in the much-talked-about five year development and transformation scheme.

While government reports indicate that the accumulation will last for a minimum of 50 years, the company was promised to pay taxes lowered to 30 % until it gets back the money it has invested in the venture.

Source: Goggle, an Amharic Weekly