Ex-Im Bank’s $35 million guarantee for Iraqi plant

   The U.S. Export-Import Bank voted Thursday to guarantee a JPMorgan Chase loan totaling $35 million to Devco International of Tulsa, Okla., for the design and construction of a sulfur purification plant in Mosul, Iraq.
   Ex-Im Bank’s financing will support about 380 U.S. jobs, according to bank estimates derived from Commerce and Labor department data.
   “This significant transaction not only supports American small-business jobs here at home, but it also supports the sulfur and agricultural industries in Iraq,” said Ex-Im Bank Chairman and President Fred P. Hochberg, in a statement.
   “A project such as this would have been difficult to obtain without their dedicated assistance,” added Doug Houston, Devco’s owner and chief executive officer.
   Devco will design, procure, fabricate, and pre-assemble the plant in the United States and then ship it in modular-form to Iraq, the bank said. Upon arrival, Al Hawarth, an Iraqi-owned company, will re-assemble the facility outside the riverside city of Mosul.
   The plant will process sulfur from underground deposits using a priority process, known as “submerged combustion distillation,” developed by CTI Consulting of New Orleans. The Al-Mishraq Sulphur State Co., which will own and operate the facility, plans to retail the purified sulfur output in Iraq for domestic use. Sulfur is a key ingredient in fertilizer and therefore is in demand within the agricultural sector.