Pillsbury Represents Client in Saudi Petrochemical Complex Financing

On 16 March 2015, the Rabigh Refining and Petrochemical Company signed the definitive finance documents for the expansion phase totaling approx. US$5.2 billion. The multi-sourced Rabigh 2 project financing is to be provided by a combination of governmental financial institutions, including the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC), the Public Investment Fund (PIF), global commercial banks and Islamic banks. The Pillsbury team advised Sumitomo Chemical on all aspects of the project documentation, technology licensing and construction contracts for the Rabigh 2 Project. The expansion of the existing ethane cracker plant and the addition of a new naphtha reformer/aromatics complex will result in the production of new specialty products such as ethylene propylene diene monomer rubber (EPR), thermo plastic olefin (TPO), methyl methacrylate (MMA) and poly methyl methacrylate (PMMA) and will make use of petrochemical feedstock provided by the existing Rabigh 1 facilities. Once completed, the Rabigh complex will be capable of producing approx. 5 million tons per annum of petrochemical products and 15 million tons per annum of refined petroleum product, and is a strategic step towards the longer term goal of enhancing exports of high-value specialty plastics such as those described above.

Pillsbury’s Projects team advising Sumitomo Chemical was led by Tokyo Office Managing Partners Bill Huss and Anthony Raven, and was supported by Tokyo-based Counsel, Olivia Matsushita, and New York-based Senior Associate, Jason Parker. Also working on the deal were Tokyo based Partners Yuji Iwanaga and Simon Barrett, and Tokyo-based Senior Counsel Yuki Machida.