Turkish Billionaire Said to Fund $750 Million Venezuela Plant

(Bloomberg) -- Turkish billionaire Robert Yuksel Yildirim’s holding company signed a $750 million investment for the construction of an ammonia plant in eastern Venezuela, according to a senior government official.

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Venezuela’s state-owned petrochemical company, known as Pequiven, signed a deal with Yildirim Group for the construction of a plant projected to produce 600,000 tons of ammonia per year, said the official, who asked not to be identified because the discussions aren’t public. The plan was briefly mentioned by Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro during a televised meeting from downtown Caracas on June 7 alongside Yildirim.

“This is a win-win alliance for Turkey and Venezuela, Mr. Yildirim,” Maduro said during the meeting, adding that deals on gold and natural gas were also on the way. “It’s a good decision by the Yildirim companies to arrive in Venezuela on time to invest.”

The plant is still in a design phase and there is no estimated date of completion, the official said. PDVSA and Robert Yuksel Yildirim didn’t respond to requests for comments.

Maduro is seeking to foster foreign investment from allied nations, such as Turkey, China and Iran, as renewed US sanctions limit multinational companies’ ability to do business there. Despite the risks, investors have been lured by the possibility of a recovery of Venezuela’s oil industry, the country’s lifeblood.

The socialist leader’s government has given oil majors more operational control in their local joint ventures with PDVSA and recently allowed a foreign company to help manage Venezuela’s failing steel industry.

Yildirim holds a 24% stake in shipping giant CMA CGM SA, one of the world’s biggest container lines. It operates port terminals in Turkey, Sweden, Norway, Portugal, Croatia, Peru, Ecuador and Guatemala, and runs mining plants in Russia, Kazakhstan, Albania, Kosovo and the US.

--With assistance from Ercan Ersoy.

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