Saturday, Feb 13, 2010
BEIRUT (Zawya Dow Jones)--Office Cherifien des Phosphates, or OCP, Morocco's largest state-owned industrial company, said it has started receiving offers for a project to build a 200-kilometer underground pipeline to transport phosphate ore at a total investment of $500 million, pan-Arab daily Al Hayat reports Saturday.
OCP, which plans to gradually abandon railways for phosphate transport and use underground pipelines instead, will boost annual production to 50 million tons through this project that will be completed at the end of 2012, the paper reports, citing OCP.
OCP has received loan guarantees for the project worth EUR240 million from the Agence Francaise de Developpement, or AFD, and from Coface, the export guarantee agency, because the project is economically feasible and environmentally friendly, it adds.
Newspaper Web site: www.daralhayat.com
-By Beirut Bureau, Zawya Dow Jones; +961-1-985 757; BeirutZDJ@zawya.com
Copyright (c) 2010 ABQ Zawya Ltd.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
13-02-10 1141GMT
