The National Bank of Egypt (NBE) has submitted an offer to the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC) concerning issuing bonds to provide the liquidity required for the Corporation’s investments, said Mahmoud Montasser, board member and head of credit sector at NBE.
On the sidelines of the roundtable held under the title of “Financing Petroleum Sector”, Montasser said the petroleum projects are high-cost projects. Accordingly, such projects have the priority for funding, he concluded. Issuing bonds is a good solution for providing liquidity for such projects as it will enable the bank to offer finances to the Corporation above the lending limit set by the Central Bank of Egypt which does not allow a lender to finance a customer with more than 20% of the lender’s base capital, he added.
The bank approved to finance or to act as a partner in the biofuel project and offered to purchase the raw materials from abroad. However, the laboratories did not have license to import such materials and the deal was stopped, he noted, affirming on NBE’s efforts towards boosting national economy and financing national and private-sectors projects.
The bank repaid the dues owed by the Corporation to the electricity authority for 5 years. EGPC and the electricity authority are repaying their loans regularly, which made them from the largest borrowers. NBE acquires stakes of more than 20% in petrochemical and petroleum projects, Montasser added.
