Gulf Coast Ammonia LLC (GCA) announced that it has closed on non-recourse project financing for its world-scale anhydrous ammonia plant in Texas on December 30, 2019.
Construction capital will be provided by a joint venture of Starwood Energy Group Global LLC (Starwood Energy) and Mabanaft GmbH & Co. KG (Mabanaft). The facility will have a production capacity of approximately 1.3 million tons of ammonia per year and will purchase hydrogen and nitrogen gases as feedstock, providing for significant capital efficiency and reduced air emissions.
Construction of the facility will begin in early 2020 with commissioning expected in the first half of 2023.
GCA’s state-of-the-art facility will be located within an industrial chemical site in Texas City, Texas and will offer advantageous logistics with deep-water access and pipeline connectivity. Oiltanking North America (a sister company of Mabanaft) will own and operate the marine facilities.
GCA has secured long-term offtake contracts for the majority of its production capacity and long-term supply agreements for its feedstock.
The project was initiated by Agrifos Partners LLC and brought to successful conclusion in collaboration with its joint venture development partners Mabanaft and Macquarie Capital. As of this closing, GCA is wholly owned by a joint venture of Mabanaft and Starwood Energy.
Ken Koye, GCA’s newly appointed CEO, said, “This new world-class facility will meet domestic and global demands for nitrogen-based fertilizers to improve crop production and yields to feed the world’s growing population, as well as specialty chemical production on the Texas Gulf Coast.”
Tim Bullock, CEO of Mabanaft, said, “Mabanaft is very excited to be the operating partner of this project. This is a major strategic step for Mabanaft to grow and diversify our portfolio and establish a footprint in chemical growth markets, leveraging our group’s network of world-class business partners.”
Himanshu Saxena, CEO of Starwood Energy, said, “GCA represents Starwood Energy’s first investment in a highly contracted downstream / chemical development project. The shale gas revolution and resulting low prices of natural gas have allowed projects like this to benefit from the sustained arbitrage between the value of a global commodity and the cost of a local commodity. We believe that this opportunity provides a uniquely mitigated risk profile and allows us to leverage our expertise of managing complex development projects.”
Hamza Slimani, Vice President of Agrifos Partners and outgoing CEO of GCA, said, “We are proud to have worked with our development partners, Mabanaft and Macquarie Capital, to bring this project through the development phase and to see construction start. The GCA plant will be an important contributor to the world’s supply of ammonia.”
Source: Gulf Coast Ammonia LLC