Milbank Acts on $3.5 Billion Financing for Construction of World's Largest Independent Water and Power Plant
$3.5 Billion Marafiq Project to Supply Power and Water to Saudi Arabia
LONDON, June 26, 2007 – An agreement for the financing of the $3.5 billion Marafiq Independent Water and Power Project (IWPP) in Jubail, northeast of Saudi Arabia, has been signed. The international law firm Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP represented the project lenders which provided $3.5 billion limited recourse financing, including lead arrangers BNP Paribas, Gulf International Bank and Samba, as well as the Korean Export Insurance Corporation.
The Marafiq facility is the world’s largest independent water power plant, replacing the $2.5 billion Shauibah project, which Milbank also advised on. The financing reached financial close last week, which will allow construction to begin through a consortium including General Electric, Hyundai and SIDEM. The Project Sponsors are Suez Energy, Arabian Company for Water & Power Projects, and Gulf Investment Corporation. The financing includes a $650 million facility guaranteed by the Korea Export Insurance Corporation (KEIC) and comprises the largest guarantee issued by KEIC. There is also a $600 million Islamic facility, the largest facility of its size to date in the power and water sector.
John R. Dewar, the London-based partner in Milbank’s Global Project Finance Group, commented, “This project, the largest privately financed water and power project currently under development, will contribute significantly to the Kingdom’s economic growth. The project will produce 2,750MW of electricity and 800,000 cubic meters of desalinated water per day.”
The Milbank team also included London associates Richard Keenan, Madeleine Welham, Alison Smith, James Orme, Daisy East and Asha Ghedia.
About Milbank
Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP is a preeminent global law firm that for more than 140 years has provided innovative legal solutions in many of the world’s largest, most complex, “first-ever” corporate transactions and litigation. Our transactional expertise includes capital markets, corporate finance and transactions, project finance, acquisition finance, and other major fields of law practice. Milbank litigation teams resolve disputes involving mergers and acquisitions, proxy battles, financings and securities offerings, intellectual property, white collar crime, and corporate restructurings, among others. Our clients range from prominent multinational financial, industrial and commercial enterprises to governments, institutions and individuals. The Firm is headquartered in New York with offices in Beijing, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, London, Los Angeles, Munich, Singapore, Tokyo, and Washington, DC.