Indorama Eleme Fertiliser & Chemicals (IEFCL) has secured a US$800mn loan from a host of commercial and development banks.

The Nigerian company will use the finance to expand the country’s largest fertiliser production facility. It also secured an equity investment of US$400mn, bringing the total project cost to US$1.2bn.

GTR can reveal that the breakdown of the debt part of the financing is as follows:

IFC ‘a loan’: US$150mn, IFC ‘b loan’: US$75mn, FMO: US$30mn, Deutsche Investitions- und Entwicklungsgesellschaft (DEG): US$35mn, European Financing Partners (EFP): US$30mn, CDC Group: US$40mn, Belgian Investment Company (BIO): US$15mn, African Development Bank (AfDB): US$100mn, Standard Chartered: US$60mn, African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank): US$75mn, Stanbic: US$50mn, Emerging Africa Infrastructure Fund: US$30mn, GT Bank: US$40mn, Ecobank: US$40mn, Access Bank: US$10mn, United Bank for Africa (UBA): US$20mn.

The commercial banks’ contributions have tenors of eight years, while the development banks’ loans have tenors of 11 years.

The plant is a gas-to-urea complex and is located in Port Harcourt. The fertiliser produced at the plant will be sold in Benin, Brazil, Ghana, India, Nigeria, South Africa, the UK and the US. It will make Nigeria, which currently sources 80% of its fertiliser needs on the import market, self-sufficient and a major exporter.

The project also includes the construction of an 84km pipeline and a multipurpose jetty and terminal infrastructure at Onne Port, 16km from the plant site.

It is hoped the plant will also support job creation in the area and help in achieving the millennium development goals in the areas of food sufficiency and a cleaner environment.