Qalaa Holdings, one of Africa's leaders in energy and infrastructure, revealed on Wednesday that it has completed a $120m funding round for its subsidiary, the Egyptian Refining Company (ERC), the final such round requested by ERC's project finance lenders, consisting of a $70m capital increase and a $50m shareholders' loan, bringing the total equity component up to $1.5bn and the total cost of the megaproject up to $4.4bn. According to Qalaa Chairperson and Founder, Ahmed Heikal, the new funding will be utilised to pay the first project finance debt instalment and part of the second debt instalment for ERC which is now 99.6% complete and set to begin full commercial operations during the third quarter (Q3) of 2019. "The majority of our large shareholders have stepped up their commitments and given us their full support which is a testament to the solid fundamentals of a project that has the potential to become economically and environmentally transformative for Egypt," said Heikal. The ERC has already started trial operations earlier this year and as of May it had supplied 160,000 tonnes of low sulphur European specs diesel, naphtha, and high-octane gasoline to the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC). The refinery has the capacity to produce 4.7m tons of refined products and high-quality oil derivatives, representing 40% of Egypt's current imports.
