Skretting's new feed factory in Nigeria's Ibadan region is likely to open next year or in early 2021, Nutreco Managing Director for Africa Rob Kiers told IntraFish.

"We are constructing as we speak," Kiers said.

The 75,000-metric-ton capacity plant will mainly produce feed for catfish, the predominant species among aquaculture producers in Nigeria. It will also produce feed for tilapia grown in the country.

"It takes time to build and engineer a feed mill but we have acquired all the land and done all the engineering and hopefully in the course of next year or latest early 2021 we will be able to start full-scale commercial production there."

Skretting isn't saying how much it has invested in the site but pretty much all feed produced at the site will be sold to Nigerian aquaculture producers.

The feed producer has no plans to start exporting from Nigeria and will continue to rely on a site in Egypt and its European operations to supply countries including Ghana, Ivory Coast and also East Africa.

"The Nigerian market is big enough to absorb the volumes that we are intending to produce," Kiers said.

Production equipment from a separate 25,000-metric-ton plant will be shifted to the new site, hoisting overall overall capacity in Nigeria to 100,000 metric tons. The existing site will instead be used as a specialist poultry feed production plant.

In April 2018 Nutreco assumed full ownership of Skretting Nigeria with the aim of building the new plant. In the three years prior, Skretting Nigeria was a joint-venture with the shareholders of local fish farming operation Durante.

Skretting supplies aquaculture producers from local plants in, Egypt, Nigeria and Zambia exporting to 20 markets in Africa.

Aquaculture

The plans behind Skretting's 75,000 ton African fish feed plant