Egypt’s Middle East Oil Refinery (Midor) has appointed National Bank of Egypt (NBE) and National Bank of Abu Dhabi (NBAD) to advise on a loan, according to local paper Amwal al-Ghad.

The loan will finance the $1.4bn expansion of the Alexandria-based refinery.

The Italian subsidiary of France’s Technip has signed a contract for the main engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) of the project. Italian export credit agency SACE will provide export credit facilities.

Midor signed two agreements with US oil company UOP to acquire licences for the technology for the expansion.

The expansion scheme is aiming to increase the refinery’s capacity from 100,000 barrels a day (b/d) to 160,000 b/d. An agreement to carry out feasibility studies was signed on 9 August 2014.

The refinery is already considered to be the most advanced in Africa. It came on stream in 2000 and currently has 16 processing units, most of which are licensed by UOP, and includes Egypt’s sole hydrocracker.