IFC money for 500 MW wind project? The International Finance Corporation (IFC) could provide USD 83 mn to an Emirati-Japanese consortium to part-fund their planned 500 MW wind farm in Ras Ghareb, according to the lender’s website. The financing is pending approval and would consist of a USD 75 mn loan and interest rate swaps worth around USD 8 mn, the disclosure says.

The players: The wind farm will be built by Amunet, a local special purpose vehicle that is 60% owned by Al Nowais subsidiary AMEA Power and 40% owned by Japan’s Sumitomo Corporation. A consortium led by PowerChina Huadong Engineering will be the EPC contractor, while Chinese energy group Envision will serve as the turbine supplier.

The project: The IFC puts the total cost of the wind farm at USD 709 mn, 80% of which will be financed by debt and the remainder by equity. Further loans are expected from export credit agencies and commercial banks. The electricity produced will be sold to the state-owned Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company under a 25-year power purchase agreement. Construction is set to begin in March 2023 and finish two-and-a-half years later, the disclosure reads.

ICYMI: Our wind sector is seeing a lot of action. Saudi renewables player ACWA power last week revealed plans to build a 10-GW facility — what would be the second-largest wind farm in the world — while a consortium of Orascom Construction, Engie and Toyota Tsusho broke ground on a 500-MW farm in Ras Ghareb last week. ACWA and our friends at Hassan Allam, meanwhile, are working on a 1.1 GW farm.

AND MORE DEVELOPMENT LOANS IN THE PIPELINE FROM THE EIB-

We could soon be getting more than EUR 500 mn in fresh loans from the European Investment Bank (EIB). The lender is considering three new loans to Egypt, according to the bank’s website:

• A EUR 307 mn loan to fund half of the cost of upgrades to Cairo Metro Line 2;
• A EUR 150 mn “food resilience” loan to fund half the cost of a project to add silos and buy wheat to replenish strategic reserves;
• A EUR 70 mn loan to state-owned Banque du Caire (BdC) for on-lending to underserved micro-entrepreneurs outside of Cairo and Alexandria.