The 10 prospective lead arrangers are Arab Bank, ANZ Investment Bank, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, BNP Paribas, Credit Agricole Indosuez, Gulf International Bank (GIB), HSBC, Mizuho Financial Group, Societe Generaleand Sumitomo-Mitsui Banking Corporation.

Final confirmation of what roles the various lead arrangers will play is expected at the kick-off meeting. However, it is understood that BNP will be the co-ordinating joint bookrunner and documentation bank, HSBC and GIB will be the joint bookrunners, the technical bank will be Sumitomo-Mitsui and the agent bank, Societe Generale.

Some changes to the structure of the financing have been made following meetings between the prospective lead arrangers and SRC and its financial adviser, Bank of America. The main change has been that the 14-year commercial loan tranche has been raised to $647 million and now includes the stand-by facility, which was originally to be handled as a separate tranche. The second tranche will be a $261.6 million facility for which political risk and possibly commercial risk cover is being provided by Nippon Export & Investment Insurance (Nexi), while the fourth tranche is a $261.9 million loan from the Japan Bank for International Co-operation (JBIC).

The commercial tranche will have a step-up structure. Pre-completion pricing has been set at 90 basis points (bp) over Libor. The pricing in post-completion will start at 105 bp rising in four steps to 160 bp. Financial close is scheduled for October.

Japan's JGC Corporationsigned on 19 May the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract to build the 116,000 barrel-a-day refinery, which is due to be completed in the first half of 2006.