ICBC participates in $115 million syndicated loan for 150MW Barker Power Plant Construction Project

On April 26, 2017, UGEN S.A. — a special purpose vehicle and subsidiary of MSU Energy Group — signed a $115 million syndicated loan agreement with Banco de Galicia y Buenos Aires S.A., Banco Hipotecario S.A., BACS Banco de Crédito y Securitización, Banco Macro S.A., and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (Argentina) S.A. for the 150MW Barker Power Plant Construction Project. The loan carried a 5 year maturity (final maturity: June 2022) and an unknown interest rate. As of September 30, 2017, the loan’s amount outstanding was $105.7 million was outstanding under this loan, and, as of March 13, 2018, its amount outstanding was $109 million. The purpose of the project was the construction and operation of the gas-fired Barker power plant in the partido of Benito Juarez and the Province of Buenos Aires. The purpose of the power plant itself is to provide electricity to Argentina's national electricity grid, the Argentine Interconnection System (SADI). As such, UGEN S.A. entered into a 10-year Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) for the Barker power plant with Compañía Administradora del Mercado Mayorista Eléctrico S.A. (CAMMESA) – the government entity in Argentina that manages the wholesale energy market and the dispatch of electricity to the SADI – on July 25, 2016. The plant has three General Electric turbo generators (model LM6000-PC Sprint), each with 50 MW of generation capacity. Electricity from the Barker power plant is dispatched to the SADI through the Barker-Olavarría high voltage line. General Electric (Argentina Branch) was the EPC contractor responsible for project implementation. The Barker power plant began operating on December 29, 2017.

Additional details

1. ICBC’s contribution to the $115 million syndicated loan is unknown. For the time being, AidData assumes equal contributions ($23 million) across the 5 participants in the loan syndicate 2. Per MSU Energy's Offering Memorandum, UGEN's PPA with CAMMESA was amended on October 26, 2017. Additionally, the Committed Date established in the Barker PPA was November 15, 2017. However, pursuant to an amendment to the PPA to change the site of the power plant, the Committed Date was extended to December 30, 2017.

Number of official sources

2

Number of total sources

6