Bank of China contributes to a $1.441 billion syndicated loan for the Tobolsk Polymer Plant Project

On January 22, 2010 and July 2, 2010, a syndicate of at least eight banks and two export credit agencies — including the Bank of China (BOC) — signed agreements for a $1.441 billion USD syndicated facility to Vnesheconombank (VEB) — a Russian government-owned development bank — for the Tobolsk Polymer Plant Project. This syndicated facility was divided into a $1.221 billion USD export credit agency-covered tranche with a maturity period of 13.5 years and a $220,000,000 USD commercial facility tranche with a maturity period of five years. Italian ECA) Sace and Germany’s ECA Euler Hermes provided guarantees for $686.2 million USD and $533.8 million USD respectively. There are eight known lenders: Crédit Agricole CIB, Deutsche Bank, ING, Intesa Sanpaolo, and Société Générale (SocGen) served as initial mandated lead arrangers; KfW Ipex-Bank and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation Europe served as mandated lead arrangers; and Bank of China served as a participating bank. The proceeds were to be used to support the construction of a polymer plant in Tobolsk with an installed capacity of 500,000 tons per year, making it Europe's largest polypropylene plant. It consisted of two units: a 510 ktpa propane dehydrogenation (PDH) propylene production unit and a 500 ktpa polypropylene production unit. The plant is located next to SIBUR's operating Tobolsk-Neftekhim plant, which would provide 600 ktpa of propane as feedbstock. Russian petrochemical company SIBUR was the owner of the project. Maire Tecnimont SpA and Linde AG served as engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contractors, with a polypropylene unit using licensed technology from Ineos (UK). Construction began in spring 2010 and was commissioned in a opening ceremony attended by President of Russia Vladimir Putin in October 2013.

Additional details

1. It is unclear whether VEB on-lent to SIBUR's project company, Tobolsk-Polymer Ltd, for this project. This issue merits further investigation. 2. It is unclear whether BOC, or any lender for that matter, contributed to both the $1.221 billion USD ECA-covered tranche and the $220 million USD commercial facility tranche. AidData has treated BOC as having contributed to the entire $1.441 billion USD loan; as a result, it has added Euler Hermes and SACE as guarantee agencies, but for the maturity record, it has taken the average of the two maturities (13.5 + 5) / 2, or 6.75, and has coded this as the maturity rate to ensure both tranches are represented. 3. The individual contributions of the eight lenders to this $1.441 billion USD loan is unknown. For the time being, AidData has estimated the contribution of BOC by assuming that each lender contributed an equal amount ($180,125,000 USD) to the tranche.

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