Bayer CropScience plans to locate a plant to supply production of its Liberty brand glufosinate-ammonium herbicide at Evonik's US site in Mobile, Alabama, the Mobile industrial development board has revealed.

Troy Wayman, vice president of economic development for the Mobile chamber of commerce, told an Alabama business promotion website the Bayer group company will spend $120 million on the project, which will go on stream before the end of 2015 and benefit from local investment incentives.

Initially, Wayman said, the Monheim, Germany-based agrochemicals producer had intended to build an integrated facility worth just under $400 million, which would have produced its own starting material. However, as the expected investment cost ballooned to $500 million, Bayer decided to co-locate.

Evonik, one of Alabama's largest foreign investors, will supply starting materials for the herbicide. Actual production of the finished crop protection agent will take place at other Bayer plants.

Wayman said co-location arrangements linking international chemical producers are becoming more common. In 2013 the development board approved a tax abatement for BASF Corporation, US subsidiary of the Ludwigshafen, Germany, chemical giant to co-locate an $84.3 million facility at Evonik's Mobile site.

In August 2014, Evonik announced plans to invest $113 million at Mobile to create a chemical park that would attract co-location projects. The expansion is expected to be completed in mid-2017.