Case study: Unique Meghnaghat Power Limited

Portland Advisers acted as financial adviser to Swiss Export Risk Insurance (SERV) on the US$ 613 million Unique Meghnaghat gas fired power project in Bangladesh

The project involved the construction of a greenfield gas powered plant and associated facilities 40km south east of Dhaka city. The project sponsors were Unique Hotels & Resorts Limited, Strategic Finance Limited, Nebras Power Investment Management BV and GE Capital Global Energy Investments BV. The debt was provided by Standard Chartered Bank (covered by SERV), Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), Deutsche Investitions-und Entwicklungsgesellschaft (DEG) and Opec Fund for International Development (OFID). The Portland team of Harry Philp, James Benbow and Grant Baillie were responsible for advising SEV on all aspects of the project:

• Developing an acceptable risk allocation structure for the project such as sponsor support for certain key project risks including elements of construction risk and offtake risk.
• Assisting in the negotiation of the term sheet.
• Working with the market consultants to understand the pricing and dynamics of the electricity and gas markets in and to develop sensitivity cases.
• Working with the technical consultant to understand the technology issues in the project, including the grid interconnection issues, to develop sensitivity analysis scenarios and to develop a completion testing regime as a requirement for project completion.
• Working with the insurance consultant to ensure a satisfactory insurance package acceptable to the lenders was put in place.
• Running the financial model on behalf SERV and conducting sensitivity analysis and breakeven analysis for the project.
• Reviewing all project agreements
• Assisting SERV with their credit approval process.

Transaction closed on 20 December 2023

Contact harry.philp@portlandadvisers.com for further information.