Baker & McKenzie has acted for The Dow Chemical Company (Dow) and certain Dow subsidiaries in relation to the USD 1.4 billion Islamic finance facilities made available to Saudi Acrylic Acid Company (SAAC), Saudi Acrylic Monomers Company (SAMCO) and Saudi Acrylic Polymers Company (SAPCO) to support the construction and operation of three integrated petrochemical plants in Jubail Industrial City in The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. These three companies are each borrowers of separate loans on an integrated project financing basis.
Dow is one of the four sponsors in the project, the others being National Industrialization Company (Tasnee), Sahara Petrochemicals Company (Sahara), and Evonik Industries AG (Evonik). Baker & McKenzie also fielded a separate team to advise Evonik on the project, with appropriate ethics screen arrangements in place.
The SAMCO joint venture (formed by Dow, Tasnee and Sahara) will construct and operate the first acrylic monomer production plant in the region. SAMCO will produce and sell up to 70,000 tonnes per annum of glacial acrylic acid to SAPCO and up to 160,000 tonnes per annum of butyl acrylate to SAAC and a Dow offtaker. Acrylates are intermediate products with many uses including production of super absorbent polymers, paints and coatings. The plant is scheduled to begin production in 2013.
The Baker & McKenzie team was led by Charles Hallab, partner in the Chicago office, who also advised on project documents. Charles was assisted by associate Mohamed Barakat also in Chicago.
Gordon Prestige partner in the Bahrain office advised on the financing side and was assisted by Bilal Rana in the Riyadh office.
The project companies were represented by Linklaters and the financiers were represented by Clifford Chance.
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