Salalah Methanol Company (SMC), a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Oman Oil Company (OOC), has secured a 12-year $728 million project finance facility for funding an ammonia project from a mix of 12 international, regional and local banks, said a report.

The Oman Oil Company revealed that a portion of the facility will be used to refinance SMC’s existing debt, while the remaining $443 million will be allocated for building an ammonia project, added the Times of Oman report.

The loan facility was oversubscribed by around two-and-a-half times of the required amount, it said.

The proposed ammonia project will have a capacity of 1,000 tonnes per day (tpa) of anhydrous liquid ammonia.

Construction of the proposed ammonia project is scheduled to start during the fourth quarter of this year and is expected to be ready in 2020.

The ammonia plant will be utilising the methanol plant’s hydrogen rich by-product gas as feedstock making it capable of producing ammonia with great energy saving.

By utilising purge gas from the methanol plant of SMC, the ammonia plant requires significantly less capital expenditure spend when compared with a greenfield ammonia plant of similar capacity, making it a highly competitive producer globally, added the report.