CONSTRUCTION

Investcorp US development

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Gulf Arab investment bank Investcorp has announced it will develop a $875m property project near Seattle, Washington, with US developer Schnitzer West. Bahrain-based Investcorp will provide most of the equity for the commercial, retail and residential project, which will cover 1.7 million square feet.

Schlitterbahn Kansas resort

Schlitterbahn Waterparks has broken ground on its resort in Kansas City. The $750m, 300-acre resort is expected to open in 2009. Dubbed Schlitterbahn Vacation Village, the resort will include not only a waterpark, but also 1800 lodging units, a partly covered man-made river walk and 400,000 square feet of retail space.

ELECTRICITY

Illinois wind park

EDP-Energias de Portugal has announced that its fully owned US-based subsidiary Horizon Wind Energy will open the second phase of the Twin Groves wind park in central Illinois. It will have 198 megawatts (MW) of installed capacity, in a total investment of $600m (€407m). The total installed capacity of the project is 396MW. The first phase of the park started operating in March 2007.

PRODUCTION

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Texas gasification plant

Eastman Chemical Company has announced plans to develop a $1.6bn state-of-the-art industrial gasification facility to be located in Beaumont, Texas. The new facility is expected to generate 1300 to 1500 construction jobs and more than 250 permanent jobs. Eastman expects the plant to be online in 2011.

Norsk Hydro Brazil refinery

Norsk Hydro has announced that it will invest $1.5bn in a new alumina refinery project in Brazil. The refinery will be located close to Belem in the state of Para. It is to be developed in four stages, each with a capacity for 1.85 million tons per year of alumina production, and with a final output of 7.4 million tons per year. Hydro is a Fortune Global 500 supplier of aluminium and aluminium products. Based in Norway, it employs 25,000 people in more than 30 countries and has activities on all continents.

R&D

Drug facility in Quebec

Charles River Laboratories intends to build a new facility in Sherbrooke, Quebec, to support the company’s expanding pre-clinical services business. The facility will provide essential drug discovery and development services to the international pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical industries. It will cover about 300,000 square feet. The first phase is scheduled to be opened by the first quarter of 2009. The facility is ultimately expected to employ 1000 people.

This investment news and data has been provided by OCO Global, a provider of strategic consulting services for economic development organisations in the area of FDI. Key services include management consultancy, investor targeting services, training and mentoring, and software development.

www.ococonsulting.com

STATS

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