Board of Directors of the African Development Bank (AfDB) has approved a senior loan of $100 million to Indorama Eleme Fertilizer & Chemicals Limited (IEFCL) to build and operate a gas to urea fertilizer plant located in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, that will serve markets in Benin, Brazil, Ghana, India, Nigeria, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States of America.

According to report, the project which will support the achievement of Millennium Development Goals in the areas of food sufficiency and a cleaner environment, will allow Nigeria, which relies heavily (80 percent) on imported fertilizer, to become self-sufficient and a major exporter.

With the project, the AfDB also promotes small and medium enterprise linkages through the distribution supply chain for the domestic market. The project will create 3,854 jobs of which 250 are direct and 348 indirect local positions during construction and operation.

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 km from the project site.

Indorama Eleme Fertilizer & Chemicals Limited (IEFCL) is the Borrower and Project Company. It 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 complimented by exports to nearby countries.

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