Fujairah Asia Power Company has inaugurated the Fujairah F2 independent water and power project (IWPP) in the emirate.

With a capacity to generate 2GW of electricity and 130 million imperial gallons of water a day (g/d), it is the largest desalination plant in the UAE and the second largest of its kind in the world.

The power plant design has three gas turbine combined-cycle blocks, which incorporate five gas turbines and three steam turbines. It also includes a 100 million g/d multiple effect distillation (MED) desalination plant based on twelve 8.3 million g/d MED units and a 30 million g/d reverse osmosis desalination section.

The $2.8 billion plant took three years to build. Abu Dhabi Water & Electricity Authority (Adwea) selected a UK/Japanese group of International Power and Marubeni Corporation to build the project in 2007.

Adwea has a 60 per cent equity interest, while Marubeni Corporation and International Power-GDF Suez each hold a 20 per cent interest. The sponsors put forward $493m in equity, while the banks provided $2.26bn in debt.

Japan Bank of International Cooperation provided $1.3bn in a working capital tranche. A group of France’s Credit Agricole Group, the US’ Citigroup and Japan’s SMBC put forward $900m in a term loan tranche with a 22-year tenor. Pricing started at 60 basis points (bp) above the London interbank offered rate rising to 110bp. Credit Agricole Group supplied a $57m bridge facility.