Dec 2 2010
Ma’aden, the Saudi Arabian Mining Company, and Alcoa today announced that the Ma’aden Aluminium Company and Ma’aden Rolling Company both of which are owned 74.9% by Ma’aden and 25.1% by Alcoa have signed bank financing for the Middle East’s first fully integrated aluminum smelter and food-grade can-sheet rolling mill in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.. Sixteen financial institutions, together providing over US$1.9 billion, participated in the signing. The financing has been heavily oversubscribed.
Engineer Abdullah Busfar, interim President of the smelting and rolling mill companies and Vice President of the Ma’aden Aluminum SBU, said that there had been wide ranging international interest in financing the project. “We have the participation of major Saudi Arabian banks as well as major international banks,” he said.
Busfar added that the signing marked the latest in a string of milestones that the project has met successfully under challenging deadlines. “We signed the JV Agreement in December last year, broke ground in June this year, met our financing commitments in the same month, and poured first concrete on October 24, just 10 months after signing the JV. We are well and truly on our way,” he said.
At the ceremony, Ken Wisnoski, Alcoa’s president of Global Primary Products Growth, said: “We are pleased that financing, on very attractive terms, for the smelter and the rolling mill was achieved swiftly during a challenging period in the global financial markets. We are gratified by the significant over-subscription, which reflects the bank groups’ strong support for this project. It echoes our own confidence in the project’s potential to become the preeminent aluminum manufacturing complex in the Middle East.”
The companies will shortly commence the financing process for the mine and refinery, which constitute the second phase of the US$10.8 billion Ma’aden Alcoa joint venture.