The board of the US government's Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) has approved US$90m in financing for the expansion of an existing project in Liberia that harvests unproductive rubber trees and processes them into woodchips for energy production. The project is managed by Buchanan Renewables Fuel, which was established in 2009 with the help of a start-up loan from OPIC in order to make productive use of the country's large stock of unproductive rubber trees. It has since benefited from private investment from Pamoja Capital (Switzerland), Vattenfall (Sweden) and Swedfund (Sweden). The loan will enable Buchanan Renewables to increase annual capacity from the current 100,000 tonnes to over 2m tonnes by 2017. Although some of this biomass will be used to generate electricity for Monrovia from the company's plant just outside the capital, some production is likely to be exported. An estimated 300 jobs will be created, as well as a variety of community projects in the city of Buchanan, including an orphanage, a community centre for teenagers, and a community bus service.