The six new lenders are Citibank, HSBC Investment Bank, Mashreqbank, Credit Agricole Indosuez, National Bank of Abu Dhabi and Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank. They join Standard Chartered Bank, which announced in late June that it had agreed to lend $150 million. It is understood that Dubal is aiming to raise up to $1,100 million through a string of bilateral transactions priced at more than 50 basis points over Libor(MEED 5:7:02).

Dubal's Kestrel project will result in a 174,000-tonne-a-year (t/y) expansion of its Jebel Ali smelter, raising total capacity to 710,000 t/y (see page 17).