IFC close to $2.7 bln debt refinancing for Mozambique’s Nacala railway

CAPE TOWN (Capital Markets in Africa) – The International Finance Corporation, part of the World Bank, expects to close a $2.7 billion debt refinancing for the Nacala Corridor railway project in Mozambique early next year, a senior IFC official said on Friday.

The refinancing could help to ease balance sheet pressure on Brazilian miner Vale which is developing the railway and a coal mine in the region.

“The plan is to close by the end of the first quarter 2017,” Marcel Bruhwiler, the IFC’s principal investment officer for infrastructure and natural resources, told Reuters on the sidelines of a gas conference in Cape Town.

Vale last month agreed  new terms for the sale of stakes in the mine and railway project to fellow shareholder Mitsui & Co, a deal which hinges on the approval of a project finance plan.

The newly built 912 km line, which links Vale’s Moatize coal mine in Tete in the north of Mozambique to the Nacala port on the east coast and crosses over into Malawi, will also be used to move general freight and passengers as the southern African nation recovers after decades of civil war.

Read  more: IFC close to $2.7 bln debt refinancing for Mozambique’s Nacala railway – Reuters