Tunisia aims to relaunch its phosphate production to regain its historical levels, with a target of around 10 million tonnes per year. This was announced by the Minister of Equipment and Housing, responsible for managing the affairs of the Ministry of Industry, Mines and Energy, Salah Zouari.
In an interview given to the specialized platform Attaqa, based in Washington, the minister stated that restoring the pace of phosphate production is one of Tunisia’s main priorities in the mining sector.
Rehabilitating facilities to restart production
According to Salah Zouari, Tunisia already has industrial facilities dedicated to phosphate production. Authorities are currently working on rehabilitating them and improving their performance in order to strengthen national production capacity.
The objective is to enable the phosphate sector to gradually regain its former activity levels and once again reach an annual production of around 10 million tonnes.
Transform 60 to 70 % of extracted phosphate
Beyond extraction, the Tunisian authorities also intend to further develop phosphate processing activities, especially for the manufacture of fertilizers.
“This is not only about producing phosphate. We are also working on converting it into fertilizer, which is a key pillar of this industry,” the minister explained.
Salah Zouari noted that the efforts also focus on modernizing and developing the existing plants.
The stated ambition is to reach, in the near future, to transform between 60% and 70% of the extracted phosphate into derivative products, in order to reinforce industrial activities linked to this resource.
This orientation is thus based on two complementary objectives: restoring a high level of crude phosphate production and developing national processing capabilities.
However, the minister did not specify a detailed timetable to achieve these production and processing objectives.
