Bahraini power company completes $1bn refinancing

Alamy via Reuters

• Al Dur has 25-year purchase agreement
• Refinancing facilities up to 11 years
• Power generation and water desalination

Bahrain’s Al Dur Power & Water Company has closed a $1.2 billion refinancing facility provided by a syndicate of 17 local, regional and international banks.

The kingdom’s largest power generation and water desalination company will use the funds to refinance its existing project-level debt.

The refinancing facilities extend up to 11 years and include a $643 million conventional facility and a $557 million Islamic facility.

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Al Dur is a $2.2 billion gas-fired power generation and seawater reverse osmosis desalination plant.

It started operations in early 2012 and has a capacity of 1,234 megawatts (MW) in power and 48 million gallons per day of water. 

The company benefits from a 25-year power and water purchase agreement entered into with the kingdom’s electricity and water authority, EWA.

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Al Dur Power & Water Company is owned by a consortium comprising ENGIE, Gulf Investment Corporation, Kyushu Electric Power Company and the Social Insurance Organisation (SIO).

Bahrain recorded its highest electricity load in its history at 3,819MW in August last year, an increase of almost 3 percent compared to the previous summer.

The number of failures in high-voltage cables last summer dropped by 11 percent and the percentage of failures in low-voltage cables fell by 13 percent.