Page 8 - Downstream Monitor - MEA Week 28

DMEA refininG DMEA
BAPCO making headway on major refining project
middLe east
BAhRAIN Petroleum Co.’s (BAPCO’s) expan- sion of the company’s refinery at Sitra has reached 25% completion according to CEO Pete Bartlett.
Speaking in Manama, he said that $1bn of the anticipated total outlay of $6bn had been spent as the rm seeks to upgrade and expand the facility from 267,000 barrels per day to 380,000 bpd. e modernised re nery is scheduled to be commis- sioned by early 2023.
e $4.2bn main engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract was finally awarded in December 2018 to a team led by UK-based technipFMC with South Korea’s Samsung Engineering and Spain’s tecnicas Reu- nidas, the pipeline supplying additional crude feedstock from Saudi Arabia was inaugurated last month, and a nancing package is now being assembled.
the BAPCO Modernization Programme (BMP) is the largest capital investment in Bah- rain’s history and the company announced in May that it had closed nancing for the project.
While it did not publish specifics, Down- stream MEA (DMEA) reported in November 2018 that KEXIM and Korea trade Insurance
Corp. (K-Sure) had announced combined back- ing of US$734 million for Samsung’s $1.3mn share of the EPC work.
A month earlier, UKEF formally noted that the project was under consideration for fund- ing, while discussions are also understood to be underway with CESCE.
Export Credit Agency (ECA) funding is expected to be worth around $3bn, while a “teaser” was sent to banks in mid-2018 over participation in a commercial tranche of around $1bn. BAPCO and parastatal parent Nogahol- ding have both in the past tapped the Islamic banking sector for funds.
Financial close is anticipated during the rst quarter. BNP Paribas, hSBC and Verus Partners have advised on the transaction.
Also late last year, BAPCO and Saudi Aramco commissioned phase four of the Saudi-Bah- rain A-B oil pipeline, taking total capacity to 350,000 bpd. Bartlett noted that around 83.5% of BAPCO’s feedstock is imported via the A-B pipeline, with the remainder coming from the 50,000 bpd Bahrain (Awali) eld. he added that roughly 90% of the rm’s re ned product output is exported from Sitra’s marine terminal.™
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w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 28 17•July•2019