Fertilizer company moves forward with $2.8B project in Indiana

A fertilizer company in southwest Indiana is moving forward with a $2.8 billion project with the help of state incentives.

Midwest Fertilizer Co. will begin construction on its Posey County manufacturing facility next year, the Evansville Courier & Press reported. Construction is projected to support more than 2,500 jobs.

The state Economic Development Corp. has offered the company up to $2.9 million in conditional tax credits, up to $400,000 in training grants and up to $300,000 in conditional incentives. The performance-based incentives require the company to create jobs and invest in the state.

Pakistan-based Fatima Group is one of the company's main investors.

Former Gov. Mike Pence opposed the project in 2013 because of concerns about Fatima Group's overseas fertilizer being used in roadside explosives in Afghanistan.

The U.S. Department of Defense found that Fatima was cooperating with the government. Pence dropped his opposition to the project in 2014.

Gov. Eric Holcomb's administration took office in January and continued to back the project.

"I offer my enthusiastic support for Midwest Fertilizer's plans to advance in southwest Indiana, and I look forward to seeing increased high-quality job opportunities for Hoosiers," Holcomb said.

The company aims to create up to 185 high-wage jobs at the facility by 2021, officials with the department said.

In 2016, the company awarded a contract to ThyssenKrupp Industrial Solutions USA to design and build the project on a 226-acre site near the Ohio River city of Mount Vernon, about 20 miles west of Evansville.

The facility will produce nitrogen fertilizer for Midwest farmers. The company said it hopes to reduce the need to import fertilizer from overseas.

The facility is expected to be operation in 2022 and produce about 2 million tons of ammonia, urea ammonium nitrate solution and diesel exhaust fluid annually.