Saudi Arabia has secured more than USD 3.5 bn in funding for its part of the 3 GW Egypt-Saudi electricity interlink project, according to the Saudi Press Agency. The Saudi Electricity Company (SEC) secured a 14-year USD 567.5 mn export credit agency facility to fund “capital expenditures” and a five-year USD 3 bn facility from a syndicate of 15 regional and international banks to refinance an existing facility that was initially raised in 2017 and is set to mature this month.

The banks involved: Standard Chartered Bank and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation arranged the 14-year ECA facility, with guarantees from the Swedish Export Credit Agency and funding from the Swedish Export Credit Corporation. The syndicate includes Standard Chartered Bank, HSBC, Intesa Sanpaolo, Mizuho Bank, MUFG Bank, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, State Bank of India, Bank of China, Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank, First Abu Dhabi Bank, National Bank of Kuwait, KfW IPEX-Bank and Societe Generale. SEC has appointed Mizuho Bank and Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank as the agents for the facility.

Refresher: The project will allow Egypt and Saudi to exchange up to 3 GW of electricity at peak times, providing power to upward of 20 mn people. The project is scheduled to start operations in late 2024 with a capacity of 1.5 GW, which will be increased in mid-2025.