The Board of Directors of the African Development Bank has approved a $100m loan to Indorama Eleme Fertilizer and Chemicals Limited to build and operate a gas to urea fertilizer plant in Port Harcourt.
The plant is expected to serve markets in Benin, Brazil, Ghana, India, Nigeria, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States of America, according to a statement by the bank.
The project will allow Nigeria, which relies heavily on imported fertilizer, to progressively become self-sufficient and a major exporter of the product, according to the statement.
The project, the statement added, would act as a catalyst to support job creation in the area, in addition to striving towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals in the areas of food sufficiency and cleaner environment.
The IEFCL plant, located in the existing Eleme industrial complex, will produce urea to be sold in export and domestic markets. Other project components will include an 84-kilometre pipeline and a multipurpose jetty and terminal infrastructure at Onne Port, 16 kilometres from the project site.
The complex is expected to be among the most competitive production sites, given the low feedstock price and economies of scale.
IEFCL is the borrower and project company, and is owned by Eleme and Indorama. Eleme is Africa’s second largest polyolefin producer and has a majority market share of polyethylene and polypropylene in Nigeria, complemented by exports to nearby countries, according to the statement.