Sonker’s shareholders are: Egyptian Amiral Petroleum Services S.A.E (51%), the General Authority for Suez Canal Economic Zone (“GASCEZ”) (12%), the Ministry of Finance (12%), Misr Petroleum Co. (15%), and Petroleum Cooperative Association (10%). GASCEZ is a parastatal in charge of the Red Sea Ports and the other two shareholders are also Government-owned entities, which are subsidiaries of EGPC.

IFC is proposing a 10.5-year debt facility of up to US$355 million consisting of an A-loan of up to US$90 million and up to US$265 million to be funded by Parallel / B-lenders. 

The proceeds would be mainly geared towards refinancing the Project Company’s existing debt facilities, filling the Debt Service Reserve Account (“DSRA”) as well as covering other arrears and initial financing fees.

Sonker’s LBT is located in Basin 3 of the Sokhna Port on the Red Sea in Egypt. The main sponsor, Amiral, is headquartered in Cairo, Egypt.

The governance risk to development impact is deemed to be low for this transaction. Sonker has made some improvements against the Corporate Governance Action Plan identified in 2015 and is committed to continue to maintain good governance standards. IFC will contribute to this as part of this investment.

Sonker’s terminal is inside a port complex and an industrial area. There is no manufacturing process onsite; therefore, air emissions, wastewater discharges, and waste generation are all limited. The liquid chemicals are transferred to and from the terminal through an underground pipeline system. The nearest community is approximately 3 km away, which is unlikely to be impacted by the operations at Sonker’s terminal.

Mitigation measures for the potential E&S risks and impacts as part of this investment have been identified and are incorporated into an Environmental and Social Action Plan (ESAP). The potential adverse E&S impacts of this project are considered few in number, of limited significance and readily mitigated through the Company’s existing systems and procedures. This is therefore a Category B project according to IFC’s Policy on Environmental and Social Sustainability