Egypt’s Carbon Holdings receives funding for Tahrir petchem complex

According to the country’s local media sources, Egypt’s Carbon Holdings has signed a financing contract with the Africa Finance Corporation (AFC), a Nigeria-based development financier, for the construction of a new petrochemical complex.

Under the contract, Carbon Holdings has secured a grant of $1.25 billion for the Tahrir Petrochemical Complex, which will be built in the Suez Canal Economic Zone over the next year. The company expects to start production in 2022 and reach full capacity by the end of that year, the media reported.

The complex will include a 4 million tons/year naphtha cracker and related downstream units with a capacity to produce 1.4 million tons/year of ethylene and PE, 900,000 tons/year of propylene, 250,000 tons/year of butadiene, 350,000 tons/year of benzene and 100,000 tons/year of hexene-1.

Earlier this year, Carbon Holdings secured financing worth around $5.4 billion from export credit agencies and other institutions, including UK Export Finance (UKEF), Germany’s Euler Hermes, and the US-based Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) for the project.