Saudi Arabian Mining Company (Maaden) will send out the request for proposals (RFP) for the financing of its $10.8bn aluminium smelter on 1 May, and will ask banks to respond to the invitation to fund the project by 29 May.

According to sources in Saudi Arabia, 25 banks attended a meeting on 26 April between the project sponsors, Maaden and US-based aluminium company Alcoa; Bechtel, who completed a feasibility study for the project, and financial advisers local Riyad Bank and the UK’s Standard Chartered.

“There was a lot of interest in the presentations of this project, and although it was primarily targeted at the local banks, quite a few international banks attended as well,” says one local banker.

Further meetings with international banks are scheduled to occur in the UK and France in early May.

The financing will be used for the development of a smelter, with a refinery and a bauxite mine also planned. The total project development cost is expected to be around $10.8bn. The smelter will be developed in Ras al-Zour, with the bauxite mine and refinery at Zubairah, in Qassim province in the centre of Saudi Arabia.