The Board of Directors of the African Development Bank (AfDB) has approved today a senior loan of US $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.

The project will allow Nigeria, which relies heavily (80 per cent) on imported fertilizer, to progressively become self-sufficient and a major exporter. Ultimately, the project will 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 a 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 km 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.

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.

With this 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. Moreover, the IEFCL project will generate revenues for host communities, River State Government and Eleme employees as well as the Federal Government of Nigeria from dividends, taxes and foreign exchange savings through import substitution.