Cairo-Egypt Hydrocarbon Corp. (EHC), an affiliate of Carbon Holdings, has announced it has concluded financing and has begun work on a world-scale chemical complex in the Suez region of Egypt. The complex includes both nitric acid and ammonium nitrate facilities. The announcement was made by Mr. Basil El-Baz, chairman and CEO of Carbon Holdings, at a signing ceremony for the US$298 million loan facility held in Cairo. “This project is a significant step for Carbon Holdings and EHC in our plan to execute three major projects over the next five years. As a private company, we have the ability to efficiently evaluate market dynamics and implement projects in a timely manner, and this project is the result of that capability,” said El-Baz. The complex will convert ammonia feedstock to 925 mt/d of nitric acid, which is further processed to produce 1,060 mt/d of low density ammonium nitrate. Start-up of the facility is estimated in 2013. The engineering, procurement, and construction contract and technology licenses have been executed with Uhde Gmbh, a wholly-owned subsidiary of ThyssenKrupp AG. The initial mandated lead arrangers for the loan facility are Ahli United Bank (Egypt) and Ahli United Bank (Bahrain) who are the bookrunners, security agent Banque Misr, and Commercial International Bank (Egypt), the facility agent.
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