East Delta Electricity Company Studies 3 New Funding Bids

East Delta Electricity Production Company (EDEPCO) is holding next month its annual meeting to discuss three offers to provide an EGP 725 million financing.

Sources with knowledge of the talks informed Amwal Al Ghad on Tuesday that EDEPCO has received offers from three consortia of major banks working in Egypt.

According to the sources, the first consortium includes the National Bank of Egypt (NBE), the Commercial International Bank (CIB), Qatar National Bank (QNB) and Banque Misr. The Second consortium involves names such as Banque Du Caire and Société Arabe Internationale de Banque (SAIB), they said; while the third consortium is led by Arab African International Bank (AAIB).

Moreover, the sources referred that the NBE-led consortium is likely to win and arrange the EDEPCO’s financing backed by the latter’s initial approval of the loan terms and conditions.

NBE has formerly sent a formal request to EDEPCO to arrange a loan on condition that it would participate with EGP 425 million, while CIB and QNB would cover the remaining share of financing (EGP 300 million), the sources elaborated.

Part of the financing will support the needs of the EDEPCO to convert the existing open cycle in Shabab and West Damietta power stations to combined cycle gas system.

The initial investment cost of the conversion to combined cycle system project amounts to EGP 6.125 billion. Two steam turbines will be attached to Shabab plant and one steam turbine to the West Damietta plant. The turbines, which each have a 250MW capacity, will operate through energy recovery boilers.

In 2013, EDEPCO received a shariah-compliant US$120 million financing from Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank (ADIB) – Egypt, designated for parts replacements in the Shabab and Damietta stations, which are considered important and vital steps to increase the capacity of the national electrical grid. The company had also received another loan at value of EGP 1.6 billion from NBE and Banque Misr.