ADWEA seeks up to $1.6bn for power plant

ADWEA is seeking funds for a power plant.

The Abu Dhabi Water and Electricity Authority, also known as Adwea, is seeking $1.4 billion to $1.6 billion to fund the Shuweihat S3 power plant, an official from the company’s financial adviser HSBC Holdings Plc said.

Adwea is in talks with banks to borrow 80 percent of the cost of the 1,600 megawatt plant for 23 years and may complete the financing deal by the first quarter of 2011, Duncan Allison, director of project and export finance at HSBC, said in an interview today.

Speaking at a Middle East Economic Digest conference in Abu Dhabi today, he said: “Markets are coming back; 15 to 20 year money is coming back, but not at the same level as before."

Advertisement

FEATURED COMMENT Please click here to comment on this article

Allison added: “The appetite from banks is growing; the issue is that so are the projects. There’s a huge pipeline of projects that were put on hold that are all coming back.”

Power demand in Abu Dhabi is growing at 11 percent a year, Abdulla Saif Al Nuaimi, director of privatization at Adwea, said yesterday.

The state owned power producer plans to award contracts to build Shuweihat S3 in the third quarter, which will be operational in 2013 and expand the emirate’s power capacity to 13,000 megawatts, Al Nuaimi said. (Bloomberg)

---