QAFCO was founded in 1969 as a joint venture between the State of Qatar, Norsk Hydro Norway, Davy Power gas , and Hambros Bank, to produce Ammonia & Urea by utilizing Qatar's abundant gas resources. The company is now owned by Industries Qatar (IQ) as 75% shareholder and Yara International as 25% shareholder.

QAFCO’s inception in 1969 as a joint venture company to produce chemical fertilisers was the first and a significant step in Qatar’s industrial diversification program to utilize its abundant natural gas resources. Since then QAFCO has steered its way successfully, responding adequately to the world market demand for fertiliser and living up to the expectations of its shareholders, IQ and Yara.

QAFCO inaugurated its first plant in 1973 with a design capacity of 900 tons of Ammonia and 1000 tons of urea daily. Presently QAFCO complex comprises four completely integrated trains; QAFCO-1 (1973), QAFCO-2 (1979), QAFCO-3 (1997) and QAFCO-4 (2004). Each train is made up of two units, one for production of ammonia and the other for urea.

Through scientific strategic plans and integration of the latest technologies, QAFCO steadily developed, over the years, in terms of nameplate capacity, production quantities, quality and competitiveness of products, accordingly QAFCO has become one of the main producers and exporters of ammonia and urea in the world. Now after the completion of QAFCO-4 plant QAFCO has emerged as the world’s largest single site producer of urea and ammonia with an annual production capacity of 2 million tons of ammonia and 2 million tons of urea.