OCP Group (Morocco): One mineral held for a century
Asili AfricaPlay episode
Show notes
In 1920 a dahir created OCP to hold Morocco's phosphate, a mineral with no substitute, and the state has never sold the company. Over a hundred and six years that hold has widened: from the ground to the factory, onto Bou Craa in Western Sahara, a territory whose status has never been settled, and, through a programme still under way, toward its own ammonia and water. Every edge of that hold is still argued over: whose ground, what the state takes from its own company and what it gives, and what the sea is given.
