Egypt’s Carbon Holdings is now planning for its initial public offering (IPO) to take place in 2019, according to industry sources. 

Previously the IPO was scheduled to take place before the end of 2018. 

The Egyptian investment bank EFG Hermes has agreed to run the IPO, Chicago-based Baker and McKenzie is acting as local legal counsel, and New York-based White and Case is international counsel.

Some of the funds raised through the IPO will support the development of Tahrir Petrochemical Complex (TPC), Egypt’s largest-ever petrochemicals project. 

US-based Bechtel is due to sign a project management consultancy (PMC) contract in late June with Carbon Holdings for the $8bn TPC project, according to industry sources.

The winners of these contracts are Bechtel, Germany’s Linde, Italy’s Maire Tecnimont and Greece’s Archirodon.

Project financing is provided by France’s Euler Hermes, the UK’s export credit agency, Canada’s export credit agency, and Overseas Private Investment Corporation, the US government’s development finance institution.

Commercial bank syndication for funding is being handled by Euler Hermes and the UK’s export credit agency, and is currently in the market.

Approvals are expected in July and the project’s financial close is scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2018, according to industry sources. 

Carbon Holdings started preparations for the IPO in 2015, when the company said it was aiming to sell shares within 36 months. 

In 2015, Abu Dhabi’s Gulf Capital signed a AED92m ($25m) financing agreement to fund Carbon Holdings’ industrial projects in Egypt. It was thought that the move would give Gulf Capital a leading role in Carbon Holdings’ listing.

Originally, the TPC project was expected to be completed in 2017, but has been subject to setbacks and delays, some of them connected to Egypt’s revolution and the subsequent turmoil, and more recently to financing problems.

In 2015, Carbon Holdings said it expected financing to close by the end of the year and that it would be provided by five agencies, but talks were put on hold because Export-Import Bank of the US (US Exim) could not lend new cash until its licence was renewed by Congress.

The TPC scheme includes the construction of a 1.5 million tonne-a-year (t/y) ethylene cracker and a polyethylene facility with a capacity of about 1.4 million t/y.

Other major products will include propylene, polypropylene, hexene, butadiene, benzene and styrene. When completed it is expected to be the largest naphtha cracker plant in the world.

Designed to serve local and export markets, TPC will be constructed in Egypt’s Suez Special Economic Development Zone, with raw materials received and products shipped from the Gulf of Suez.