Cairo – Mubasher: Orascom Construction Limited (OC) on Thursday announced that the foreign currency financing of Assiut and West Damietta combined cycle power plants in Egypt has reached a financial close.
The project is part of an OC-General Electric (GE) consortium, which arranged a financing package on behalf of the client and borrower, the Egyptian Electricity Holding Company (EEHC), the company said in a statement.
The project entails the conversion of the two natural gas-fired power plants "from simple to combined cycle on an EPC + Finance basis," it added.
In the third quarter of 2015, the consortium completed the simple cycle phase of the power plants in less than 8 months.
"Both [projects] are currently operational and have a combined power generation capacity of 1,500 MW. Converting them into combined cycle will improve efficiency and is expected to increase capacity by approximately 50% with no additional fuel intake, leading to lower cost of operation," OC highlighted.
These projects are expected to reduce the environmental impact of the power plants, particularly in terms of carbon and NOx emissions by 32%.
Italian Export Credit Agency, SACE (CDP Group), will extend the insurance cover by 100% to the loan coordinated by BNP Paribas as Coordinating Initial Mandated Lead Arranger and extended by BNP Paribas, Crédit Agricole Corporate and Investment Bank, Crédit Industriel et Commercial and ING Bank as Mandated Lead Arrangers, for EEHC to finance both projects, the statement showed.
"This milestone ensures that Assiut and West Damietta power plants are fully financed, with the foreign currency portions committed by international banks and guaranteed by an export credit agency," OC said.
