Arab petroleum launches $500m energy support fund
By GTR
The Arab Petroleum Investments Corporation (Apicorp) has launched a new $500 million package to support the energy industry in the Middle East.
The initiative joins other development banks in the region that have deployed finance lines in response to Covid-19 and amid a fragile energy industry.
The package will be used to support “sustainable impact-driven projects”, offering funding and working capital to utilities, renewables, petrochemicals and other energy sub-sectors, according to a statement from the bank.
Sherif Elsayed Ayoub, CFO of Apicorp, tells GTR that the funding is to be immediately disbursed and will be used for project and trade financing, and for both funded and unfunded transactions.
“This is not an open-ended $500 million financing envelope, this is something that we would call an ‘immediate deployment’, aiming to be disbursed in the next few months,” he says.
Apicorp is owned by the member countries of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) including Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Qatar and UAE. In April, it announced a large increase in callable capital – the money a lender can call from its shareholders but which has not yet been paid – to $8.5 billion from $1 billion.
The bank says the increase was based on a recommendation by Apicorp’s board of directors and boosts its financial resiliency, as well as its ability to invest in the energy sector.
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