Sembcorp Industries broke the ground for its green ammonia plant in the port city of Thoothukudi in Tamil Nadu.

The project will be executed at an outlay of Rs 36,200 crore. The foundation stone was laid by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin via video conferencing from Chennai.

The company has been allotted about 160 acres of land at the V O Chidambaranar Port in Thoothukudi, for the project to generate 1,511 jobs.

The plant, whose front-end engineering and design work has already commenced, will initially produce 2,00,000 tonne of green ammonia annually for export to Japan.

Sembcorp has signed a pact with Japan’s Kyushu Electric Power Company, Sojitz Corporation, and Nippon Yusen Kabushiki Kaisha (NYK) for exporting green ammonia produced from this plant  to Japan. NYK will oversee the maritime transportation of the green ammonia, and establish a supply chain from production in India to supply in Japan, particularly in the Kyushu region.

The groundbreaking ceremony comes eight months after Sembcorp and the state government signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for the project during the third edition of the Global Investors Meet.