Clifford Chance advised 15 lenders on financing Nigeria's first fully privately financed independent power plant (IPP). The plant will begin with a 450MW open cycle gas turbine power station due to come on-stream in 2017. It represents the first phase of what will ultimately be a 1,500MW power plant.

The Azura-Edo IPP is the first of a new wave of project financed greenfield IPPs currently being developed in the country. The financing structure was complex. In addition to mezzanine, international commercial and development finance tranches it comprised a locally denominated tranche that, for the first time, saw a project finance transaction of this nature backed by a state liquidity fund rather than bilateral funding.

It is also the first power generation project in Nigeria to receive the World Bank Partial Risk Guarantee and Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) support.

Russell Wells, global co-head of projects at Clifford Chance, comments: "Power shortages in sub-Saharan Africa are a critical limit to the economic potential of the region, and bringing international capital to bear on the problem through independent power plants is a vital part of the solution. This project alone is estimated to benefit up to 12 million people in Nigeria."

The deal follows a string of successful African power sector projects that Clifford Chance has advised on. The power sector team is part of the firm's wider Africa practice comprising over 200 lawyers who regularly advise on the most high-profile power and infrastructure transactions taking place across Africa.

Recent highlights from Clifford Chance's multi-disciplinarily team:

* Advising on the USD 825 million financing of a coal fired power plant and adjacent coal mine owned located in Maamba, Zambia. The deal is one of the first African project financings for Bank of China and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, as well as the first African power project to receive ECA insurance coverage (including for breach of contract) from China Export & Credit Insurance Corporation and Sinosure.

* Advising the sponsors in connection with the UD$2.6 billion, 18 year financing of a 1,386MW ultra supercritical coal-fired IPP near the Port of Safi, the largest project financed transaction in Africa.

* Advising commercial banks and development finance institutions in relation to the financing of the 340MW Kpone gas-fired IPP in Ghana. This was the largest ever independent power project in West Africa, and at the time it was the largest in Sub-Saharan Africa seen in the last 10 years.

* Advising Actis on a joint venture with Mainstream Renewable Power, the global wind and solar developer, to establish a circa USD 2 billion pan-African renewable energy generation platform, Lekela Power.  The Clifford Chance team was led by Worldwide Projects and Africa Group partners Russell Wells in London and Anthony Giustini in Paris.