Deutsche Bank, HSBC and KfW Ipex-Bank have concluded the financing for two more combined cycle (COGAS) power plants in Egypt. The Burullus and New Capital projects are in addition to the Beni Suef 4400MW combined cycle power plant which won a €1.2bn financing in November.

The financing amounts to a combined €3.5bn, more or less equally divided between the three projects, and it involves a total of 17 banks. The financing is underwritten by German export credit agency Euler Hermes for the most part, while Italy’s Sace is guaranteeing a smaller HSBC-led facility of €179mn for the Beni Suef plant.

Deutsche Bank, HSBC and KfW Ipex-Bank acted as co-ordinating initial mandated lead arrangers , mandated by the state-owned Egyptian Electricity Holding Company (EEHC).

The international banks consortium comprises Commerzbank, Crédit Agricole, ING, JP Morgan, LBBW, Santander, Société Générale, UniCredit acting as mandated lead arrangers and AKA Ausfuhrkredit, BayernLB, BNP Paribas, DZ Bank, Helaba, IKB Deutsche Industriebank are the other participating banks. Intesa SanPaolo participated with UniCredit in the HSBC-led facility.

The Egyptian Electricity Holding Company (EEHC), which operates under the ministry of electricity and renewable energy, has been busy commissioning projects that can bridge the existing supply-demand electricity gap and improve the country’s energy efficiency. The government of Egypt is pushing to increase power generation capacity by about 17%, and upon completion in 2018 the plants will be the largest in the world.

The contracts, won by Siemens and its local consortium partner El-Sewedi, are the German company’s single biggest order to date.