Egyptian based Oriscom Construction Industries (OCI) and The Stanley Group have postponed a hearing with the Scott County Board of Supervisors indefinitely. The Board of Supervisors was set to meet with company officials to discuss rezoning 318 acres of Scott County land from Agricultural to Heavy Industrial use. Approval from the Board of Supervisors would have allowed Oriscom and the Stanley Group to break ground on a new nitrogen plant near Walcott, Iowa.
The rezoning request had been denied by the Scott County Planning and Zoning Commission in July of this year. “The application is still on file here, but no new [hearing] date has been set so far”, said a spokesman from the Scott County Planning Director’s office. “All they need to do is reschedule, but we don’t know if they are going to.”
Questions remain as to whether or not Oriscom still intends to build near Walcott. The International Finance Corporation, a member of the World Bank Group, approved a loan to Oriscom’s construction wing for US$100 million in June of this year to finance company operations and ongoing and new projects.
During 2011, Oriscom Construction Industries acquired a one million metric ton capacity integrated ammonia and methanol plant in Beumont, Texas which is expected to produce at a rate of 250 thousand tons of ammonia per year and benefit from favorable U.S. natural gas price conditions. OCI also has a hand in the Acu Superport in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil where they are currently building a state-of-the-art nitrogen-based fertilizer complex.
OCI is among the top 10 world fertilizer producers and is a strategic owner and operator of Nitrogen plants in Egypt, the Netherlands, the U.S. and Algeria.
