Maamba Coal-Fired Power Plant- Phase-I

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Maamba coal-fired power plant is located within Siankondobo coalfield in south Zambia and will have a total capacity of 600MW. The plant is being developed in two phases. The first phase involves revamping of the Maamba coal mine and the construction of a mine–mouth, 300MW Coal Fired Power Plant (CFPP) comprising two-150 MW units, together with water reservoir and water pipeline from Lake Kariba to the water reservoir. The project company is owned by Nava Bharat (65%) and ZCCM Investment Holdings (35%). The plant has a 30-year power purchase agreement for 300MW of capacity with state utility Zesco. The total project cost for the first phase is USD $830 million. Financing comprises USD $515 million debt facility split between direct loans from development finance institutions and a bank facility covered by a guarantee from Chinese export credit agency Sinosure and sponsor equity of USD $315 million including a shareholder bridge loan of USD $65 million. Development Bank of Southern Africa and the Industrial Development Corporation provided direct loans totalling $150 million. The Sinosure covered facility totalled $365 million, and featured the following banks: ICBC, Bank of China, Standard Chartered and ABSA. All of the debt has a tenor of construction plus 10 years, with work expected to be complete on the project in about one year.The African Development Bank was also expected to participate as a lender, but dropped out at a late stage. The sponsors decided to plug the funding gap with the shareholder bridge loan of USD $65 million. They intend to bring an additional senior lender into the deal post-close to repay the bridge loan.