US Exim approves loan for Saudi Quaryyah IPP

US Exim approves loan for Saudi Quaryyah IPP

US Exim has approved its involvement in the Saudi Quaryyah IPP project in Riyadh.

The project will sell capacity and energy under a 20-year power purchase agreement with Saudi Electricity Company.

US Exim pledged a US$638mn direct loan in early December to finance the sale of gas and steam turbines by Siemens Energy to be installed in the project.

The deal is split between an approximateUS$2bn commercial debt facility and a US$618mn equity bridge loan.
The banks financing the equity loan are National Commercial Bank, Banque Saudi Fransi, Samba and SABB.

The commercial debt tranche is split between approximately US$1.3bn of bank funding and US$650bn of export credit agency (ECA) funding, provided by US Exim, Export-Import Bank of Korea and KfW Ipex-Bank. The KfW Ipex portion of the loan will be covered by Germany’s ECA Euler Hermes and has a 17-year fixed interest rate on a commercial interest reference rate.

The banks funding the project debt are National Commercial Bank, Samba and Banque Saudi Fransi, SMBC, HSBC and Standard Chartered.

Markus Scheer, member of the management board of KfW Ipex, says: "The Gulf region is an important high-growth market for the energy industry as well. With this transaction our client Siemens, with their medium-sized suppliers, will once more be providing German key technology. Supporting German enterprises in their export business and financing projects aimed at protecting the environment and the climate is an integral part of the KfW Ipex business spectrum.

With an installed capacity of approximately 4 gigawatts, the project on the Arabian Gulf will be one of the world's largest and most advanced combined cycle power plants, according to KfW Ipex.

The project is due for completion in 2014.