Jeddah,30.1.2011:
Mr. Birama Boubacar Sidibe Vice- President (Operations),Islamic Development Bank (IDB), has signed an agreement to extend long term lease finance (Ijara) facility of up to US$90 million for the development of the Uch-II combined cycle independent power plant project in the Baluchistan province of Pakistan. The project will be sponsored by International Power plc of UK.
The project shall add a net generation capacity of 375MW to the national grid under a 25 year contract with the National Transmission and Distribution Company (NTDC) of Pakistan and thereby make a significant contribution to improving the power supply situation of the country. The project shall use indigenous low BTU natural gas from the Uch gas field and thereby shall reduce dependency on expensive imported fuel. Uch II Power project is expected to supply power at a very competitive price.
Besides IDB, the project is also expected to receive long term debt finance from the Asian Development Bank, International Finance Corporation and Export-Import Bank of Korea.
IDB is a multilateral development bank actively involved in financing socioeconomic development in its 56 member countries since 1975. IDB has been a long term development partner of Pakistan and has been involved in both public and private sector projects. Since its inception, IDB’s cumulative operations in Pakistan have reached to almost US$7.5 billion.