As expected, the lead arranging group has been expanded to 14, allowing the transaction to be structured as a club deal. Recent entrants to the group include Mizuho Financial Group, Kreditanstalt fuer Wiederaufbau (KfW), Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, Abu Dhabi Investment Companyand Bayerische Landesbank. The lead arrangers are understood to have taken tickets of $75 million and $50 million on a take-and-hold basis.

The financing structure comprises two non-recourse loans - a $1,100 million, 20-year term loan and a $230 million, five-year term loan - together with a $440 million, five-year equity bridge loan. The 20-year term loan includes a $250 million Islamic tranche, which is being lead arranged by Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank.

The signing of the facility agreements was preceded the day before by the project company being given access to the Umm al-Nar site and the signing of the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contracts with the nominated contractors.

Japan's Toshiba Corporationis the EPC contractor for the power works, while another Japanese company, Hitachi Corporation, is the desalination contractor. The owner's engineer is the UK's Mott MacDonald(MEED 25:4:03).

The Umm al-Nar project involves Arabian Power acquiring the existing 850-MW, 162 million-gallon-a-day (g/d) station and adding 1,550 MW and 25 million g/d of new capacity. Much of the existing capacity will be decommissioned.