$8 Billion, if ours...is ready to be announced.
posted on
Feb 22, 2008 09:32PM
The UK's Klesch & Company has signed an agreement with Tripoli to develop an $8bn aluminium smelter and oil refinery complex in Libya.
The Libyan African Investment Portfolio, a government body, has signed the joint venture agreement with private equity firm Klesch to invest in the industrial complex.
It will have a 300,000 barrel a day oil refinery and a 725,000 tonne a year (t/y) aluminium smelter. Construction is expected to be completed by 2011.
The smelter will be the first to be built in Libya. "We will be the first one," confirms Klesch chairman Gary Klesch. "We are 90 per cent, if not 100 per cent there on most of the issues."
In neighbouring Algeria, Abu Dhabi-based Mubadala and Dubai Aluminium are conducting a feasibility study for a 700,000 t/y aluminium smelter at Beni Saf. This is expected to be completed in May. The project is being developed with Algeria's national oil and gas company, Sonatrach (MEED 14:12:07).
