Indorama Eleme Petrochemical Limited (IEPL) has announced plans to invest $4.4 billion in its operations by 2019. The move will make the organisation the largest petrochemical company in Africa, the managing director, Mr. Manish Mundra, said.
Briefing members of the Senate Committee on Privatisation, led by its chairman, Senator Olugbenga Obadara, who were at the plant last week in continuation of their oversight visit to privatised enterprises in Rivers State, Mundra said the sum of $575million had been injected into the company since privatization, while N33.9 billion had been paid as dividend to the federal and Rivers state governments since 2006 when the current acquisition plan came into place.
While Rivers state government got N8.71billion as dividend, the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) got the sum of N25.2 billion on behalf of the federal government.
The managing director further explained that production had increased from four percent pre-privatisation to 77% and that the company plans to increase its production to 325,000 metric tons per annum in 2014.
According to him, as part of plans to diversify, IEPL has embarked on the construction of a mega-sized fertilizer project comprising 1.4 M MTPA nitrogenous fertilizer, a gas pipeline and jetty projects, targeted to be completed in 2015.
“The fertilizer plant will be located within the confines of the existing site measuring 361 hectares and will occupy approximately 38 hectares. The main project components involve 2,300 MTPD ammonia plant, 4,000 MTPD urea plant, 4,000 MTPD urea granulation plant with associated offsite and utilities”, he added.
He appealed to the federal government for tax exemption, suggesting that the tax regime in Nigeria should be based on the quantum of investment made by a company operating in the country.