Top Kuwaiti Islamic bank in $1.3 billion Bahrain deal

A Bahrain subsidiary of Kuwait Finance House is financing a combined petrochemical and power project in the Gulf Arab state valued at $1.3 billion, it said on Sunday.
Kuwait Finance House, Bahrain, a leading Islamic commercial and investment bank in the Gulf, said it would finance the project through a combination of equity and loans - $400 million and $900 million respectively.
"We will raise the funds and keep an equity stake of 10 percent in the project. The equity and the loans will be obtained from regional markets and investors," general manager Abdulhakeem Y. Alkhayyat told a news conference.
He said the project would be launched in mid-2005 and would take three years to complete.
When ready, the plant is expected to produce 315,000 tonnes of Ethylene Dichloride, 500,000 tonnes of Caustic Soda and 167,000 tonnes of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) a year, Alkhayyat said.
He said the plant would also have the capacity to generate 1,000 megawatts of electricity per hour and 30 million gallons of water per day.