NautaDutilh, advised Attarat Power Company (APCO) and the project sponsors, Eesti Energia AS (EE) and YTL Power International Berhad (YTL), on the construction and project financing of a 554MW gross oil shale fired mine mouth power station and open cast oil shale mine in Attarat um Ghudran, Jordan. Financial close of the USD 1,582 million debt facility was achieved on 16 March 2017.

NautaDutilh has been involved in the project since 2010 and has also advised the project sponsors on the recent partial sale of EE’s equity stake to YTL and Chinese investor Guangdong Yudean Group Co. Limited (Yudean), which was completed prior to financial close of the debt facility. The shareholders have committed to provide base shareholder funding of USD 528 million. The financing will be provided on the basis of export credit insurance provided by China Export & Credit Insurance Corporation (Sinosure). This is the largest private project financing supported by Sinosure to date.

This project is the first to commercially utilize Jordan’s oil shale reserves, and will significantly reduce Jordan’s reliance on imported oil and gas. Power will be delivered to Jordanian state-owned National Electric Power Corporation, the single offtaker, under a 30-year power purchase agreement. With an investment value of USD 2.1 billion, the project is the largest foreign direct investment in Jordan to date. The two unit power station will be the first oil shale fired power station and mine project in the world funded by limited recourse project financing.

NautaDutilh acts alongside Slaughter and May in relation to matters of English law and Ali Sharif Zu’bi Advocates & Legal Consultants in relation to matters of Jordanian law.

The NautaDutilh team consists of Maarten Buma and Aira Scheijvens (Corporate/M&A, Notarial Law), Jaco Belder and Roderick de Roo (Finance).