Here are two articles that might help you understand what's going on.


State-owned phosphate company to be turned into limited company
MAP
13 December 2007
The state-owned "Office cherifien des Phosphates" (OCP) will be turned into a limited company under a draft law approved Thursday by the Ministers' Council chaired by King Mohammed VI. The change is meant to modernize and further renovate the structure of the Moroccan phosphate company, in order to help it take up the challenges of competitiveness at the international level, according to a press release of the King's office. It also aims to allow the company face its commitments with regard to its retirement fund. Morocco holds about 70% of the world's reserves in phosphates, and half of the OCP output is exported as raw material to some forty countries. "The other half is delivered to the Group's chemical industries which process it into marketable derivative products: basic phosphoric acid, purified phosphoric acid, solid fertilizers, " according to the company's Web site. The Ministers' Council also approved a cooperation agreement between Morocco and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, as well as a convention on non-taxation and tax avoidance between the North African country and Ukraine.



A Make-Over at OCP
Africa Mining Intelligence
No 155. 10-22 May 2007
The world’s leading phosphate exporter, the Office Cherifien des Phosphates (OCP) is in the midst of a major revamp. The company is determined to avoid being outflanked by rivals in Saudi Arabia who benefit form low energy costs. Now a state-controlled entity, the OCP plans to transform itself into a limited liability company and could eventually seek a listing on the stock exchange. The firm is setting up a new audit and control department and plans to adopt international IFRS accounting standards in 2008 and to transfer the company’s individual pension fund to Morocco’s national pension scheme. But changes are also taking place in the financial and logistics department that Mohammed el Hajjuji was recently appointed to run. A transactions department will shortly be set up and OCP is to adopt a new policy on managing financial flows that will require setting aside reserves of DH 32 billion (EUR 2.8 billion). As for production, the company currently turns out 23 million tons of phosphate every year and plans to invest around DH billion in the coming decade. However, the money will go primarily to increasing OCP’s capacity to transform goods rather than on mining new reserves. To do that, the Office, which has been headed by Mostafa Terrab since last autumn, has established partnerships with foreign companies such as: Pakistan Maroc Phosophore SA which plans to build a phosphoric acid unit with a capacity of 375,000 t/yr at Jorf Lasfar; Zuari Maroc Phosphate, a JV which controls Paradeep Phosphate Ltd that produces 1 m t/Yr of phosphate-based fertilizer per annum in India; Imacid, which turns out 370,000 t/y of phosphoric acid at Jorf Lasfar, exclusively earmarked for India. The latests project is joining forces with the Bunge group to form a JV to produce phosphate acid fertilizer and sulphur at Jorf Lasfar. But the Office has also negotiated supply contracts with China’s Sinochem and Mosaic in the U.S.