Saudi Arabian Mining Company (Maaden) will meet lenders on 2 August in Dubai to work on the documentation for the financing of its $10.8bn aluminium project.

The company, along with joint venture partner Alcoa of the US, will meet with members of the banking group for the deal as it tries to get the documents in place to enable it to complete the financing on the project in September.

The project is split between an aluminium smelter and a rolling mill, with later phases including a bauxite mine. Banque Saudi Fransi has been appointed as documentation bank for the smelter financing, and National Commercial Bank has been appointed documentation bank for the aluminium rolling mill.

A total of around 15 banks are acting as lenders on the project, largely Saudi banks providing commitments to the deal in Saudi riyals. The Saudi bank group consists of National Commercial Bank, Riyad Bank, Samba, Banque Saudi Fransi, Alinma, Saudi Hollandi, Al-Rajhi Bank, Sabb, Apicorp and Arab National Bank (ANB).

International banks lending on the deal are Export Development Canada (EDC), the UAE’s Emirates NBD, France’s BNP Paribas and the UK’s Standard Chartered.

Funding for the smelter is split between a $1.7bn bank tranche, a $1.3bn loan from state-owned Public Investment Fund (PIF) and around $320m from the Saudi Industrial Development Fund (SIDF). The majority of the rolling mill financing is being provided by PIF.

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. Once complete, the complex will have a refinery with capacity of 1.8 million tonnes a year (t/y), a 740,000-t/y smelter, and a 4 million-t/y bauxite mine.

Maaden is being advised by the local Riyad Bank and the UK’s Standard Chartered.