Indorama Eleme Fertilizer and Chemicals Nigeria Limited (IEFCL) has announced that it is going to build a fertilizer plant in Nigeria that will cost $1.2bn, making it the single largest urea manufacturing plant in the world.
IEFCL, which is a subsidiary of Indian-owned Indorama Corporation, the world’s largest producer of polyester and PET resin, has already signed long-term financing agreements of $800 million with 16 global developmental financial institutions and commercial banks to construct the greenfield plant in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, the company officials said.
“The state-of-the-art manufacturing complex will produce 1.4 million tonnes of granulated urea per annum, using natural gas as feedstock, from early 2016,” said Indorama Group Managing Director, Amit Lohia.
“This project envisages setting up the single largest urea manufacturing train in the world, making this one of the lowest cost producers in the world, which will also enable it to export urea to North American and Latin American markets,” he added.
Indorama Corporation, which is the holding company of the Indorama Group, is headquartered in Singapore and has about 45 manufacturing sites in 20 countries around the world. It is also the second largest producer of rubber nitrile gloves in the world. The company, which is worth about $10bn, is owned by an Indian family with industrialist S.P. Lohia as its chairman.
IEFCL, which is West Africa’s largest polyolefins producer, is providing equity of $400 million for the new fertilizer plant.
Leaders for the $800 million funding include the International financial Corporation (IFC), a part of the World Bank group which has raised parallel loans from investment companies in Britain, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands, including a syndicated loan of $75 million from the Bank of India.
Other financial institutions involved in arranging the loan include Stanbic Bank, Nigeria, Standard Chartered Bank, African Development Bank, African Export-Import Bank, DEG (Germany), European Financing Partners, CDC Group (Britain), FMO (the Netherlands), Belgian Investment Company for Developing Countries Emerging Africa Infrastructure Fund and Nigerian commercial banks, according to the Chief Financial Officer of the Group, V.S. Baldwa.
“The IEFCL project will play a large role in addressing critical Nigerian and West African requirements for economically priced fertilizer. IEFCL will substitute fertilizer imports to address Nigeria and West Africa’s growing demand for fertilizer by utilising Nigeria’s vast hydrocarbon reserves,” Lohia said.
“We continue to see significant growth prospects in Africa and the Middle East. After investing more than $500 million over the past several years in Nigeria, Indorama is setting the foundation to create Africa’s largest petrochemical hub in the country. IEFCL, through this project, will play a key role in boosting Nigeria’s crop yields. In addition, Indorama has a rich pipeline of petrochemical projects globally to further build on its global petrochemical presence,” he added.
Indorama Corporation, which has over 20,000 employees, started with the establishment of a spun yarn manufacturing plant in Indonesia by S.P. Lohia in 1976. The group is a global manufacturer of polyethylene, polypropylene, polyester fibre, filament and spun yarns, fabrics, and medical gloves. Its products are shipped to over 90 countries across four continents.