SACE, the Italy’s provider of credit insurance, investment protection and contractual guarantees to cover political and commercial risk, has announced that it is in the process of finalising two transactions for major projects in Russia in the petrochemicals and oil & gas sectors involving Italian companies.
With the first cooperation agreement, SACE and VEB Vnesheconombank (Bank for Development and Foreign Economic Affairs of the Russian Federation) will back a petrochemicals sector project worth €2bn.
The deal, signed during the Italo-Russian intergovernmental summit in Rome, regards a contract awarded to the Italian firm Tecnimont by the Russian company Tobolsk-Polymer LL, a member of the Sibur group.
In addition, SACE has approved a €500m guarantee on the loan granted to Nord Stream AG for the construction of an undersea gas pipeline linking Russia and Germany via the Baltic Sea. The facility will be designed and installed by the Italian firm Saipem.
The 1,220 km-long gas pipeline will increase and stabilise Europe’s gas supplies from Russia, the world’s largest producer of natural gas.
This guarantee follows another, approved by SACE last October, for the construction by Milan-based firm Sirtec Niigi, of a natural gas treatment facility at the Portovaya compressor station near Vyborg (Russia).
The pipeline will pump the gas extracted from the Shtokman fields into the Nord Stream gas pipeline.
FinSMEs
07/12/2009