Safi Energy Company has received financing of $2.6bn for construction of a 1,386MW coal-fired power plant in Morocco.
The Japan Bank for International Cooperation, the Islamic Development Bank, the Moroccan banks Attijari Wafabank and Banque Centrale Populaire and several other commercial banks will serve as lenders.
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Safi Energy is a joint venture between Morocco’s Nareva, France’s GDF Suez and Japan’s Mitsui.
The project will be constructed in the coastal city of Safi. Once it is operational, it is expected to become the second biggest coal-fired power plant in the country.
It is expected to meet one-fourth of the country’s power demand by 2018.
Safi Energy has secured $900m from the Japanese bank, $500m from the Moroccan banks and $485m from international banks of France and Britain. The rest of required funding will come from other investors.
GDF Suez and Nareva secured the contract to build and operate the plant in 2010. In 2013, Mitsui joined the venture, which existed between GDF and Nareva.
The project will have two 693MW coal-fired units. Once operational, state power utility firm ONEE will buy power from Safi Energy through a 30-year power purchase agreement, which has already been signed.
It also means imports by Morocco will go up by 3.5t annually, reports Reuters.
The plant will be constructed by South Korea’s Daewoo Engineering, which secured the $1.77bn contract in 2013.
Morocco is spending MAD4.7bn ($543m) for the construction of a port in Safi in order to meet the plant’s coal requirements.
The port is designed in such a way that it can be equipped to import annually seven million tonnes of coal as the country intends to construct another coal-fired power plant with the same capacity in the area over the coming few years.
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