Morocco Launches Construction of the World's Largest Phosphate Washing Plant

Morocco's King Mohammed VI has laid the foundation to build a phosphate washing plant in the country worth around $405 million. The project ,which aims to increase productivity at the local Khouribga mine, will create hundreds of new jobs in the region.

The project aims at increasing the Khouribga site's production capacity and extending to the maximum the life of tapped mines by securing a return on the investment of the Phosphate Company OCP.

The plant, considered as the world's largest, will have two washing lines with a capacity of 1,600 tonnes/hour per unit, a floatation workshop, six grinders, dykes for sewage farm and recovering water, and three sedimentation tanks.

The plant, which has a production capacity of 12 million tonnes yearly, is expected to create 250 stable jobs and is due to be operational by summer 2013.

The project is part of OCP's industrial strategy which involves an investment of $2.1 billion.

The strategy provides for opening three new mines with 20 million additional tonnes of phosphate by 2020, which raises the mining capacity to 38 million tonnes/year against 18 million now.