Financing deal set on $1 billion southern Indiana fertilizer plant

ROCKPORT, Ind. — A businessman says he has reached a deal with a Chinese company to finance a proposed southern Indiana fertilizer plant that could cost nearly $1 billion to build.

Ohio Valley Resources president Doug Wilson of Fairfield, Ill., announced Thursday that the Chinese company will provide equity financing for the construction while his company will manage the project near the Ohio River town of Rockport.

Wilson says his company and Tierra Del Fuego Power & Chemical Co. have also picked a Chinese engineering company to develop designs for the plant about 30 miles east of Evansville that would produce ammonia and nitrogen fertilizer.

Wilson first announced plans for the Rockport plant last year. He says construction will take about three years, with completion expected in 2017.