Enerjisa secures 750 million euro in loans

ISTANBUL - Reuters

Sabancı Holding’s Enerjisa has obtained a loan of 750 million euros to finance the construction of the Tufanbeyli Thermal Power Plant in the southern province of Adana.

Creditors backing the loan include Société Générale, UniCredit Bank Austria, HSBC, Raiffeisen, Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, BNP Paribas, Fortis, Akbank, Deutsche Bank, Natixis and Erste Group, according to a company statement. Most of the finance package was insured by K-Sure, a South Korean insurance firm.

Sabancı Group signed a joint venture agreement to build the plant with Verbund, a leading Austrian electricity company, in May 2007.

The power plant will have an electricity production capacity of 450 megawatts, to be sold in the free market without a guarantee of purchase. The plant will use coal reserves that exist in Adana, developing the mines there. The plant is planned to be up and running in 2015.

“The Tufanbeyli Thermal Power Plant will be Turkey’s largest lignite power plant, and will be built based on our confidence in a completely free-market structure, without a guarantee of purchase,” said Selahattin Hakman, Sabancı Energy Group president and chairman of Enerjisa.

Meanwhile, Ma Jian, the general manager of the Inner Mongolia branch of the China Development Bank, said yesterday that the bank was in initial talks to take part in the financing package of $4 billion for Turkey’s Çalık Holding’s Eastern Mediterranean Refinery and Petrochemical Project.

The bank will also participate in financing several Chinese investments in bridge and railway construction.