This article was produced with the support of OCP
Morocco’s OCP Group, the trusted custodian of nearly three-quarters of the world’s reserves of one of the most vital natural resources – phosphate – has transformed itself from a conventional mining operator into a global leader in plant nutrition and phosphate-based solutions.
Founded in 1920 as a state-owned entity, OCP underwent a fundamental reset in 2008 to become a joint-stock company in which the Moroccan State holds a majority stake. It also moved beyond the extraction and export of phosphate rock to build a fully integrated fertiliser and plant nutrition industry, delivering resilient growth for Morocco, Africa, and the world.
Today, OCP is the world’s largest producer of phosphate-based fertilisers, with average annual output of approximately 15 million tons. Its upstream operations produce 50 million tons of phosphate rock each year, feeding a value chain that spans processing, advanced chemistry, and customised plant nutrition solutions.
According to the company, “OCP has transformed itself into an integrated industrial player positioned to confront key global challenges such as food security and climate change. This shift is the product of long-term investment, strategic pragmatism, technological ambition, and a conviction that Africa can be not only a supplier of raw materials, but also a generator of knowledge, innovation, and high-value industrial solutions. In this model, mining, processing, customized plant nutrition, advanced chemistry, and applied research are not discrete activities, but interconnected and transformative industrial processes that reinforce one another.”
A Transformation Enabled by Strong Values and Skilled People
OCP’s reorganisation – now operating as OCP Group, which comprises more than 100 entities, subsidiaries, and joint ventures (including partnerships with leading manufacturing and engineering players) – has been supported by a strengthened governance framework built around a professional Board of Directors, specialised committees, and independent oversight bodies. OCP Group emphasises ethics, transparency, accountability, and operational independence as core principles guiding decision-making. This governance architecture anchors an integrated ecosystem designed to accelerate innovation, strengthen competitiveness, and expand the Group’s global presence as a pioneer and architect of change – redefining how fertilisers are used to deliver shared economic and strategic value.
The company makes it clear: “At the core of our transformation strategy is the belief that OCP Group’s most valuable resource is our people. Our industrial and technological ambitions depend on highly skilled, empowered individuals driven by a strategic mindset rooted in exploration, innovation, and value creation.”
Commercial Performance and Operational Momentum
This strategic repositioning is delivering strong financial results:
- Revenues of $9.04 billion in the third quarter of 2025, a 30% increase compared with the same period in 2024, placing OCP Group among Africa’s top 50 companies by revenue; and
- EBITDA for the same period rose to $3.31 billion from $2.72 billion, a 22% year-on-year increase.
Their Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Karim Lotfi Senhadji, said the results reflect OCP Group’s agility in a changing global market. “This was another period of substantial growth for OCP Group. Volumes of customized products increased substantially, enabling us to meet incremental demand in key regions.”
Investing for Competitiveness and Long-Term Resilience
OCP Group is leveraging its strong balance sheet to reinvest in industrial capacity and secure long-term resilience. The Group’s $13 billion investment plan for 2023-2027 aims to expand production while accelerating the shift toward cost-competitive, low-carbon inputs, advancing its ambition to spearhead a decarbonised and circular industrial model.
Key targets of the plan include:
- Increasing fertiliser production capacity from 15 million to 20 million tons per year
- Meeting 100% of the company’s water needs – already achieved since 2025 – through desalination and wastewater recycling
- Generating 100% of its electricity by 2027 through 5 gigawatts of clean energy capacity;
- Producing green ammonia and hydrogen for internal use and export; and
- Achieving full carbon neutrality by 2040.
To finance its investment plan, OCP Group raised $1.75 billion through a four-times oversubscribed international bond issuance in April 2025, reflecting strong investor confidence in the Group’s long-term growth strategy. Additional financing includes a €365 million green loan from Italy’s SACE and a €350 million facility from France’s AFD.
Tackling Africa’s Agricultural Productivity Challenge
Africa is an increasingly strategic market for OCP Group. Many African farmers apply far less fertiliser per hectare than global averages and often use formulations poorly aligned with local soil conditions. This results in inefficiencies, further degradation of already fragile soils, and heightened food insecurity.
“The core challenge is meeting rising food demand without depleting phosphorus levels in the soil – which are already deficient in more than 40% of global soils, particularly in tropical regions”, OCP Group said. “Plants, including crops, naturally draw phosphorus from the soil as they grow. Unless it is replenished through fertilizer application, soils become depleted and crop yields decline.”
To address this challenge, the Group supports farmers, particularly smallholders, in implementing the “4Rs” of integrated nutrient management: applying the right nutrients, at the right rate, at the right time, and in the right place.
“Our research is opening new ways to customize and apply nutrients with greater precision, helping farmers understand what ‘right’ means for their specific soils, crops, and local conditions – so they use only what is needed, when it is needed”, the company said.
This approach underpins the work of OCP Nutricrops, the world’s largest producer of phosphate-based fertilizers. Launched in 2024, this OCP Group wholly owned subsidiary delivers customised phosphate-based fertilisers tailored to specific soils and crops in more than 80 countries, addressing soil degradation through responsible fertilisation, local partnerships, innovation, and digital technology.
Through its other subsidiary, OCP Africa, the Group invests in infrastructure, technology, and facilities to help address Africa’s historical under-application of fertilisers. On a continent that holds 60% of the world’s unused arable land, OCP Africa champions a localized approach and equips farmers with the tools and techniques needed to optimize crop yields while prioritising soil health – unlocking higher productivity and lower costs.
The results have been significant. In Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, and Rwanda, farmers using customised products have recorded meaningful yield gains while reducing waste, lowering import dependence, and strengthening local value chains.
Building an Innovation-Driven Industrial Ecosystem
Beyond OCP Nutricrops and OCP Africa, OCP Group is driving innovation across other parts of the Group, notably:
OCP Rock Solutions, which maximises the strategic potential of phosphate rock within the global value chain. It implements the Group’s strategic shift from a volume-based to a value-based approach, supplying advanced, tailored rock-based solutions and business models adapted to the specific industrial and agricultural needs of its clients; and
OCP SPS (Specialty Products & Solutions), a fast-growing business that unlocks new industrial applications for phosphate beyond fertilisers. Its activities span high-value sectors such as inputs for LFP batteries, fluorine, agro-additives, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals, capturing the full value of phosphate and related critical minerals.
Together, these strategic business units support OCP Group’s strategy to move into a broader, multi-sector phosphate economy and to position Africa to expand its participation in emerging global industries.
At the centre of the Group’s innovation ecosystem are the University Mohammed VI Polytechnic (UM6P) and the Group’s R&D arm, INNOVX. Both generate cutting-edge research that keeps OCP Group at the forefront of technical innovation and fosters the next generation of scientific and agricultural talent – not only for the Group, but for Morocco and Africa as a whole. Together, they link mineral resources with scientific capability and industrial opportunity, creating a pipeline of innovations that reinforce OCP Group’s long-term competitiveness.
Redefining Custodianship
As global priorities increasingly focus on food security, resource efficiency, and clean energy, phosphate is emerging as a strategic mineral for the new industrial age.
For OCP Group, being the custodian of the world’s largest phosphate reserves means more than managing a resource – it means unlocking its economic, scientific, and societal value in ways that support national development and regional prosperity, while benefiting business, society, and the planet.
By maximizing the potential of phosphate, the Group aims to ensure that African capabilities contribute meaningfully to global prosperity.
As the company states: “Phosphate may be one of the world’s oldest minerals, but it is proving to be among the most transformative. OCP Group’s work across plant nutrition, advanced chemistry, and next-generation materials shows that ‘bringing phosphorus to life’ is not simply a mission statement – it is an industrial strategy for a new era.”