Egypt's OCI takes over Abraaj fert operations

21 February 2008 13:38  [Source: ICIS news]

DUBAI (ICIS news)--Egypt's Orascom Construction Industries (OCI) is to merge its fertilizer operations with those of Dubai-based Abraaj Capital for a combined cash and shares consideration of $1.6bn (€1.1bn), OCI said on Thursday.

Orascom will assume $1.1bn in net debt, it said on Thursday.

Abraaj’s activities in the fertilizer and natural gas industries include a 100% controlling stake in Egyptian Fertilizers Co (EFC), which includes a 20% stake indirectly held by OCI.

EFC has a capacity of 1.27m tonnes/year of ammonia and urea which will increase to 1.47m tonnes/year by 2010 following a debottlenecking project.

EFC owns a 20% stake in Nigeria's Notore Chemical Industries Limited (NCIL).

It operates an ammonia/urea plant with capacity of 500,000 tonnes/year which is currently being rehabilitated and is expected to restart production in mid-2008. NCIL has sufficient gas allocation for an additional two ammonia/urea production lines.

OCI's fertilizer portfolio includes a 30% stake in Egyptian Basic Industries Corp's ammonia plant in Suez and 51% in Sorfert Algeria in partnership with state-owned oil and gas conglomerate Sonatrach.

Sorfert is building north Africa's largest urea/ammonia production complex at Arzew with a capacity of 1.3 million tonnes/year of urea and 800,000 tonnes/year of ammonia.

The production complex is scheduled for commissioning during end 2010.

($1 = €0.68)

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Author: Abdelghani Henni
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