Afreximbank Provides $200 Million for African-Led Algeria Energy Project

July 20, 2026
By Mintesinot Nigussie

African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) has approved a 200 million US dollars financing facility to support African engineering companies involved in Algeria’s 980 million US dollars Hassi Bir Rekaiz (HBR) Field Development Phase 2a project, marking the bank’s first support for a Sub-Saharan African contractor executing a major infrastructure project in North Africa. The financing will support Arkad SpA, an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractor majority-owned by Nigeria’s Shoreline Group, in delivering its 44 percent share of the contract awarded by Groupement Hassi Bir Rekaiz (GHBR), a consortium comprising Algeria’s state energy company Sonatrach, Thailand’s PTTEP and Spain’s CEPSA.

Approved in June 2026, the facility includes a 110 million US dollars contract finance component to support Arkad’s performance guarantees, advance payment guarantees and working capital requirements for the EPC contract. The remaining 90 million US dollars will be provided as a revolving facility to support Shoreline and its affiliates in bidding, construction and development of pipeline and infrastructure projects in Nigeria and other approved markets. The Hassi Bir Rekaiz Phase 2a project is expected to increase Algeria’s oil and gas production capacity from approximately 13,000 barrels per day to between 50,000 and 60,000 barrels per day through the development of a new central processing facility.

Afreximbank said the transaction strengthens the role of African companies in delivering major infrastructure projects while expanding trade in engineering and construction services across the continent. The project follows partnerships developed during the fourth Intra-African Trade Fair (IATF), held in Algeria in September 2025, which generated 50 billion US dollars in trade and investment deals. Through the fair’s deal-making platform and EPC twinning services, Afreximbank supported cooperation between Arkad and Egypt’s state-owned Petrojet, enabling the consortium to secure the HBR contract.

The financing was structured under Afreximbank’s EPC Initiative, which provides African engineering and construction firms with financial and technical support to compete for large-scale infrastructure projects. “This transaction providing Shoreline Power Company Limited and Arkad SpA with the financing to execute this landmark 980 million US dollars EPC contract in Algeria exemplifies our EPC Initiative and our Intra-African Trade Champions framework in action — enabling an African-owned engineering group to compete and deliver at the highest levels of global project execution,” said Kanayo Awani, executive vice-president for Intra-African Trade Finance and Export Development at Afreximbank.

Awani said the facility would support Algeria’s energy infrastructure development while advancing cooperation among companies from Nigeria, Egypt and Italy in engineering and construction services. The project is expected to create about 6,000 jobs and support supply-chain development in Algeria, according to Afreximbank. The bank said the partnership between Arkad and Petrojet demonstrates the growing capacity of African firms to execute complex engineering, procurement and construction projects while promoting skills transfer and reducing reliance on non-African contractors.

Source: FSX Business News