A new banking consortium, involving two of Egypt's biggest public banks, plans to secure a multi-billion Egyptian pound syndicated loan for a power plant in Red Sea, a senior banking source told Amwal Al Ghad. The loan will be arranged by two of Egypt's biggest state-run banks, the National Bank of Egypt (NBE) and Banque Misr, to fund a power plant project built near Hamrawein port, on the coast of the Red Sea. The syndicated loan is divided into two tranches; a euro tranche of €600 million and an Egyptian pound tranche of EGP3 billion. The alliance has recently sent a letter of intent to secure the syndicated loan with total value of 8 billion Egyptian pounds including the euro-dominated tranche, the source noted. Furthermore, the source told Amwal Al Ghad that the Hamrawein power plant is set to be with an investment cost worth €2.4 billion i.e. equivalent to more than 20.5 billion Egyptian pounds. The station is expected to have a capacity ranging between 2,000 -3,000 megawatts. It is set to be the first coal-fired power plant in Egypt. It will utilise clean-coal technology that complies with EU standards for emission control. Last March, Egyptian Electricity Holding Company signed an agreement with a consortium of Orascom Construction and Abu Dhabi-owned International Petroleum Investment Company (Ipic) to construct and develop a coal-fired power plant in Hamrawein.
