Masdar in $900M Egypt Wind Plan

Three companies including Japan’s Marubeni Corp. and Abu Dhabi Future Energy Co., also known as Masdar, teamed up to invest about $900 million in Egyptian wind parks.

Egypt’s ElSewedy Electric is also involved in the plan to build more than 700 megawatts. A first project of about 30 percent of the total capacity is near financial close, the company’s vice president Wael Hamdy said in an interview in Abu Dhabi.

“Marubeni is leading the financing part, so we hope to achieve financial closure as soon as possible,” he said after signing the agreement in Abu Dhabi. “Most probably we will leverage on Japanese finance. The lead arrangers and the syndication is something we are working on currently.”

Marubeni signed an MOU with the other companies to develop the project and expects total costs to be about $900 million, according to a company spokeswoman. A commercial startup date for the project hasn’t been decided, she said.

The whole project is expected to cost about 1 million euros ($1.2 million) per megawatt, in line with the industry average for onshore wind, he said.

The Egyptian government had earlier awarded the projects to the three companies.