A joint venture of France's Krebs & Compagnie and Germany's Kloeckner & Company was awarded a $252 million turnkey contract on 11 December for the construction of a fertiliser complex at Port Qassim. Work on the project has already started, with production due to begin in October 1997.

The project involves the engineering, procurement and installation of Pakistan's first diammonium phosphate (DAP) plant, a urea plant and the installation of a second-hand ammonium plant purchased in the US. The complex will produce 551,000 tonnes a year (t/y) of urea, 445,000 t/y of DAP and 460,000 t/y of ammonia. Other units will include power generation, a water treatment plant and storage tanks. The other bidder was Italy's Snamprogetti.

A new joint venture called FFC-Jordan Fertiliser Company has been formed to build the estimated $400 million complex. The shareholders include the local Fauji Fertiliser (30 per cent), the local Fauji Foundation (10 per cent), Jordan Phosphate Mines Company (JPMC - 10 per cent) and the Pakistan-Kuwait Investment Company (7 per cent). The agreement signed with JPMC in July also covers the supply of feedstock from Jordan for the DAP plant.

A $180 million commercial loan agreement is expected to be signed by the end of the year. The loan participants are The Export-Import Bank of the US (Ex-Im Bank), Canada's Export Development Corporation, the UK's Commonwealth Development Corporation, Germany's Kreditanstalt fuer Wiederaufbau, and France's Banque Nationale de Paris.

Shares worth $23 million have been placed with six international financial institutions: Morgan Grenfell, Morgan Stanley, Jardine Fleming, the Hong Kong-based Asia Tiger Fund, Hong Kong Shanghai Bank and Dallah Albaraka Group of Saudi Arabia. A public share offer is expected to be held by the end of 1995 to raise further funds for the project.

The consultant is the US' James Chemical Engineering (MEED 12:8:94).