Project Finance

Introduction

Origins of project financing

With the explosion of project financing in the late 1980s and 1990s, both in Europe and around the rest of the world, there is a temptation to think that the financing of projects on limited or non-recourse terms is a relatively novel concept, and one for which the ingenious lawyers and bankers of the 1980s can take most of the credit. This is, however, far from being true. Indeed, there is early evidence of project financing techniques being actively used during Roman times and earlier still. According to the historians, sea voyages on the Mediterranean ocean were extremely dangerous adventures in Greek and Roman times, mostly on account of the dual perils of storms and pirates. As a result of these nautical perils, some risk averse merchants would take out a fenus nauticum (sea loan) with a local lender in order to share with that lender the risk of a particular voyage. The fenus nauticum worked on the basis that the loan was advanced to the merchant for the purpose of purchasing goods on the outward voyage, which loan would be repayable out of the proceeds of the sale of these goods (or more likely other goods bought overseas with these proceeds). If the ship did not arrive safely at the home port with the cargo in question on board, then according to the terms of the fenus nauticum, the loan was not repayable. At the time, this was viewed essentially as a form of marine insurance, but it can just as easily be classified as an early form of limited recourse lending, with the lender assuming the risk of the high seas and the perils that accompanied her. History also recounts that, in order to protect their interests, these brave lenders would often send one of their slaves on the voyage to ensure that the merchant was not tempted to cheat on the lender (an early ancestor of the security trustee perhaps!).

In modern times too there is plenty of evidence of project financing techniques being used by lenders to finance projects around the world. In the 19th century, lenders in the City of London were financing numerous railway and other projects in South America and India and investing in other overseas ventures that had many features of modern-day limited recourse lending. In most cases these loans were not specifically structured as limited recourse loans as we know them today, but the commercial reality was that this is exactly what they were.

However, limited recourse lending in the UK really took off in the early 1970s when lenders in the UK started making project finance available for the development of some of the early oil and gas fields in the UK continental shelf. The early projects that were financed on this basis were relatively few and far between as there was a relatively small pool of lenders prepared to finance projects on this basis. It would also be true to say that the treasurers of many of the companies operating in the UK continental shelf at this time took some time to appreciate the advantages of financing projects in this way. The first major financing in the North Sea was in the early 1970s. This was British Petroleum’s Forties Field, which raised about £1 billion by way of a forward purchase agreement (see section 4.7 for a description of this structure). Shortly after this transaction two loans were raised by licence holders in the Piper Field (Occidental Petroleum Corporation and the International Thompson Organisation). Other financings of North Sea hydrocarbon assets followed and by the late 1970s and early 1980s what had started as a modest number of transactions had turned into a significant volume of project financings related to oil and gas fields, first in the UK continental shelf and then in the Danish and Norwegian continental shelves.

Much of the documentation and many of the techniques for these early oil and gas transactions were borrowed from practice in the US where adventurous bankers had been lending against oil and gas assets for many years. The significant difference in the context of the North Sea, however, was that bankers were in reality taking significantly more risks in lending against oil and gas assets in the North Sea. Not only were these brave bankers lending against offshore oil and gas assets where the risks were considerably greater (especially in the early days, given the new technology being developed and utilised), but they were also, in some cases, assuming all or part of the development/completion risk. Traditionally, in the early days of project financing in the US, loans were agreed against producing onshore assets, which carried a far lesser degree of risk. The North Sea was, however, an altogether more hostile and hazardous environment.

The 1980s in the UK saw perhaps the greatest growth spurt in project financing, with power projects, infrastructure projects, transportation projects and, at the end of that decade, telecommunications projects leading the way. This was continued throughout the 1990s until the more recent global financial crisis, which saw a huge growth in project financing, not only in Europe and the US but also throughout Southeast Asia and further afield.

Definition of project finance

There is no universally accepted definition of project finance. A typical definition of project financing might be: “The financing of the development or exploitation of a right, natural resource or other asset where the bulk of the financing is to be provided by way of debt and is to be repaid principally out of the assets being financed and their revenues.”

Other more sophisticated definitions are used for special purposes; set out at Fig. 1 is an example of a definition used in a corporate bond issue. This illustrates the aims of the bondholders, on the one hand, to exclude from the definition any borrowings having a recourse element (since the purpose of the definition was to exclude project finance borrowings from the bond’s cross-default and negative pledge) whilst, on the other hand, the aim of the issuer to catch as wide a range of project-related borrowings.

Extent of recourse

The expressions “non-recourse finance” and “limited recourse finance” are often used interchangeably with the term “project finance”. In strict terms, non-recourse finance is extremely rare and in most project finance transactions there is some (limited) recourse back to the borrower/sponsor beyond the assets that are being financed. As will be seen in section 6, this security may amount to full or partial completion guarantees, undertakings to cover cost overruns or other degrees of support (or comfort) made available by the sponsors/shareholders or others to the lenders.

It may even be that the only tangible form of support that a lender receives over and above the project assets is a right to rescind the project loan agreement with the borrower and/or to claim damages for breach of any undertakings, representations or warranties given by the borrower in the project loan agreement. Of course, where the borrower is a special purpose vehicle with no assets other than the project assets being financed by the lenders, then a right to claim damages from the borrower is likely to add little to a claim by the lenders for recovery of the project loan from the borrower. Further, the right to rescind the project loan agreement is likely merely to duplicate the acceleration rights of the lenders following the occurrence of an event of default contained in the project loan agreement. However, in those cases where the borrower does have other assets, or the sponsors are prepared to underwrite any claims by the project lenders for damages against the borrower, then a claim for damages for breach of any undertakings, representations or warranties may afford the lenders some additional recourse.

A claim for damages, however, from a lender’s perspective is not the same under English law (and for that matter most common law based jurisdictions) as a claim for recovery of a debt under, say, a financial guarantee. This is because a claim for damages is subject to certain common law rules; for example:

• The lender must show that the loss was caused by the breach in question
• This loss must have been reasonably foreseeable at the time the undertaking or warranty was given
• The lender is in any event under a duty to mitigate its loss.

In other words, a claim for damages against the borrower is an unliquidated claim as opposed to a claim for a debt, which would be a liquidated claim. All that a lender has to show in the case of a liquidated claim is that the debt was incurred or assumed by the borrower and that it has become due. This is clearly considerably easier than having to satisfy the common law rules and, consequently, lenders and their advisers, wherever possible, will seek to structure arrangements with a view to acquiring liquidated claims against borrowers and others supporting the borrower’s obligations (this is particularly important for lenders in the context of sponsor completion undertakings – see section 6.5).

One of the key differences, therefore, between project financing and corporate financing lies in the recourse that the lender has to the assets of the borrower. As the earlier definitions demonstrate, in project financing this recourse is limited to an identifiable pool of assets, whereas in corporate financing the lender will have recourse to all the assets of the borrower (to the extent that these assets have not been charged to other lenders). Indeed, should the borrower fail to pay a debt when due, then, subject to the terms of the loan documentation, the lender would be entitled to petition to wind up the borrower and prove in the liquidation of the borrower on a pari passu basis with all the other unsecured creditors of the borrower. In the context of a project financing, however, a lender would only be entitled to this ultimate sanction if the project vehicle is a special purpose vehicle set up specially for the project being financed. In those cases where the project vehicle undertook other activities, then it would look to ring fence the assets associated with these activities and in these cases the lender would not ordinarily be entitled to petition to wind up the borrower for non-payment of the project debt. To allow otherwise would be to allow the lender to have recourse to non-project assets, which would defeat the purpose of structuring the loan on limited or non-recourse terms in the first place.

This principle of limited recourse financing was recognised by the English courts as long ago as 1877 (and possibly earlier) in the well-known case of Williams v. Hathaway (1877) 6 CH D 544. In this case, a sum of money (the fund) was paid by way of recompense by a railway company to the vicar of a parish and the incumbent of an ecclesiastical district in accordance with an Act of Parliament which authorised the railway company to take a certain church for its purposes. The Act directed, in effect, that the money be applied by the recipients to provide a new church and parsonage. The recipients of the fund contracted with a builder to build the church and parsonage and the project proceeded. In the event, the cost of the works exceeded the monies in the fund and the builder took legal action to recover the deficiency. Jessel MR, held, inter alia, that it was permissible for a proviso to a covenant to pay to limit the personal liability under the covenant to pay without destroying it. Despite the fact that the contractual arrangements were with the individuals who were for the time being trustees of the fund, it was held that “the object [of the contractual instrument] is to bind the fund” and not the trustees in their personal capacity.

Why choose project finance?

Before examining how projects are structured and financed, it is worth asking why sponsors choose project finance to fund their projects. Project finance is invariably more expensive than raising corporate funding. Also, and importantly, it takes considerably more time to organise and involves a considerable dedication of management time and expertise in implementing, monitoring and administering the loan during the life of the project. There must, therefore, be compelling reasons for sponsors to choose this route for financing a particular project.

The following are some of the more obvious reasons why project finance might be chosen:

• The sponsors may want to insulate themselves from both the project debt and the risk of any failure of the project
• A desire on the part of sponsors not to have to consolidate the project’s debt on to their own balance sheets. This will, of course, depend on the particular accounting and/or legal requirements applicable to each sponsor. However, with the trend these days in many countries for a company’s balance sheet to reflect substance over form, this is likely to become less of a reason for sponsors to select project finance (the implementation in the UK of the recent accounting standard on “Reporting the Substance of Transactions” (FRS 5) is an example of this trend)
• There may be a genuine desire on the part of the sponsors to share some of the risk in a large project with others. It may be that in the case of some smaller companies their balance sheets are simply not strong enough to raise the necessary finance to invest in a project on their own and the only way in which they can raise the necessary finance is on a project financing basis
• A sponsor may be constrained in its ability to borrow the necessary funds for the project, either through financial covenants in its corporate loan documentation or borrowing restrictions in its statutes
• Where a sponsor is investing in a project with others on a joint venture basis, it can be extremely difficult to agree a risk-sharing basis for investment acceptable to all the co-sponsors. In such a case, investing through a special purpose vehicle on a limited recourse basis can have significant attractions

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• There may be tax advantages (e.g. in the form of tax holidays or other tax concessions) in a particular jurisdiction that make financing a project in a particular way very attractive to the sponsors
• Legislation in particular jurisdictions may indirectly force the sponsors to follow the project finance route (e.g. where a locally incorporated vehicle must be set up to own the project’s assets).

This is not an exhaustive list, but it is likely that one or more of these reasons will feature in the minds of sponsors which have elected to finance a project on limited recourse terms. Project finance, therefore, has many attractions for sponsors. It also has attractions for the host government. These might include the following:

• Attraction of foreign investment
• Acquisition of foreign skills and know-how
• Reduction of public sector borrowing requirement by relying on foreign or private funding of projects
• Possibility of developing what might otherwise be non-priority projects
• Education and training for local workforce.

Structuring the project vehicle

One of the first, and most important, issues that the project sponsors will face in deciding how to finance a particular project will be how to invest in, and fund, the project. There are a number of different structures available to sponsors for this purpose. The most common structures used are:

• A joint venture or other similar unincorporated association
• A partnership
• A limited partnership
• An incorporated body, such as a limited company (probably the most common).

Of these structures the joint venture and limited company structure are the most universally used.

A joint venture is a purely contractual arrangement pursuant to which a number of entities pursue a joint business activity. Each party will bring to the project not only its particular expertise but will be responsible for funding its own share of project costs, whether from its own revenues or an outside source. Practical difficulties may arise as there is no single project entity to acquire or own assets or employ personnel, but this is usually overcome by appointing one of the parties as operator or manager, with a greater degree of overall responsibility for the management and operation of the project. This is the most common structure used in the financing of oil and gas projects in the UK continental shelf. Partnerships are, like joint ventures, relatively simple to create and operate but, in many jurisdictions, partnership legislation imposes additional duties on the partners, some of which (such as the duty to act in the utmost good faith) cannot be excluded by agreement. Liability is unlimited other than for the limited partners in a limited partnership, but these are essentially “sleeping” partners who provide project capital and are excluded from involvement in the project on behalf of the firm.

In many cases it will not be convenient (or may not be possible) for the project assets to be held directly (whether by an operator or the individual sponsors) and in these cases it may be appropriate to establish a company or other vehicle which will hold the project assets and become the borrowing vehicle for the project. The sponsors will hold the shares in this company or other vehicle in agreed proportions. In most cases where this route is followed, the company or other vehicle would be a special purpose vehicle established exclusively for the purposes of the project and the use of the special purpose vehicle for any purposes unconnected with the project in question will be published. In addition to the constitutional documents establishing the vehicle, the terms on which it is to be owned and operated will be set out in a sponsors’ or shareholders’ agreement.

Whether sponsors follow the joint venture (direct investment) route or the special purpose vehicle (indirect investment) route ultimately will depend on a number of legal, tax, accounting and regulatory issues, both in the home country of each of the sponsors and in the host country of the project (and, perhaps, other relevant jurisdictions). Some of the relevant influencing factors might include the following:

• A wish on the part of the project sponsors to isolate the project (and, therefore, distance themselves from it) in a special purpose vehicle. If the project should subsequently fail, the lenders will have no recourse to the sponsors, other than in respect of any completion or other guarantees given by the sponsors (see section 6.5 for an explanation of such guarantees). The sponsors are effectively limiting their exposure to the project to the value of the equity and/or subordinated debt that they have contributed to the project
• The use of a joint venture or partnership, as opposed to a special purpose vehicle, can often mean that the sponsors must assume joint and several liability when contracting with third parties on behalf of the joint venture or partnership. If the borrowing for the project is through the joint venture or partnership, this is likely to result in each sponsor having to show the full amount of the project debt on its balance sheet, not a particularly attractive proposition for most project sponsors.
• By contrast, the use of a special purpose vehicle may mean that the sponsors do not have to consolidate the project debt into their own balance sheets (if it is not a “subsidiary” or “subsidiary undertaking” or equivalent). This may also be important for cross-default purposes for the sponsor. A sponsor would not want a default by a project company (even if it is a subsidiary) to trigger a cross-default in respect of other contracts or projects at sponsor level. The corporate lenders to the sponsor may agree to this, provided there is no recourse by the project’s lenders to the sponsor in the event of a project company default, eliminating the risk that the project company default will damage or further damage the sponsor’s balance sheet (note the wide definition of “project finance borrowing” used earlier in this section that typically might be used in such a case)
• On a similar note, negative pledge covenants in a sponsor’s corporate loan documentation may prohibit or limit the sponsor from creating the necessary security required in connection with a project financing. As with the cross-default clause, the corporate lenders to the sponsor may agree to exclude security interests created by the sponsor (or a subsidiary or subsidiary undertaking of the sponsor) in connection with a specific project from the terms of the sponsor’s negative pledge
• It may be a host government requirement that any foreign investment is channelled through a local company, particularly where the granting of a concession might be involved. This may be for regulatory or tax reasons or, in the case of a strategically important industry, for security or policy reasons
• The use of a joint venture or partnership can have significant tax advantages in some jurisdictions (e.g. each participant may be taxed individually and may have the ability to take all tax losses on to its own balance sheet) which may make such a vehicle attractive for some sponsors. On the other hand, a limited liability company’s profits are in effect taxed twice, once in the hands of the company and again in the hands of the individual shareholders
• A special purpose vehicle will be attractive where different sponsors require to fund their investment in the project in different ways (e.g. one may want to borrow whilst others may wish to fund the investment from internal company sources) or one may want to subscribe equity whereas another might wish to contribute debt as well (e.g. subordinate the repayment of this debt to the right of project lenders) and
• Practical considerations may also be relevant. Partnerships and contractual joint ventures are less complicated (and cheaper) to establish and operate. Registration requirements in respect of limited companies and limited partnerships eliminate confidentiality. It should also be remembered that it is easier for a company to grant security, in particular floating charges, and this may be an important consideration for the raising of finance.

In the event, the choice will never be a straightforward one and it is often the case that sponsors will have conflicting requirements. This will be one of the many challenges for those involved in project financing. It is, however, important to establish the appropriate vehicle at the outset as it can be difficult to change the vehicle once the project proceeds and, especially, once the funding structure is in place.

Key sponsor issues

Having settled on the structure of the project vehicle, it will then be necessary for the sponsors to agree at an early stage on a number of other key matters. These will include:

• The respective roles in the project of each sponsor (e.g. who will deal with the technical aspects of the project, negotiate the concession, negotiate with the lenders, arrange the project insurances, negotiate with suppliers/offtakers, oversee the establishment of the project vehicle, arrange for the necessary consents and permits). Frequently the allocation of such tasks will have been dictated already in the make-up of the sponsor group, but it is important for each sponsor to have a clear understanding at an early stage of what tasks it is to perform
• The appointment of advisers to the project. The two key appointments will be the appointment of financial and legal advisers to the project. However, other advisers, such as technical, insurance, environmental and market risk advisers, may also be required, depending on the circumstances of a particular project
• The capitalisation of the project or project company. How much capital will be put in, when will this be injected and by what method? There is no hard-and-fast rule for determining how much sponsor capital must be injected into a project. Some projects have been structured on the basis that the sponsors have put up only a nominal amount of capital (called “pinpoint capital”). More typically, however, one might expect to see an overall debt/equity ratio in the 90/10 to 75/25, range depending on the dynamics of a particular project. Most lenders will require that sponsor capital is injected at the outset, and before the banks start funding the project company. They may, however, relax this position if they are satisfied as to the credit standing of the sponsors or have received security (such as a bank guarantee or letter of credit) to secure the sponsor’s capital commitment. Shareholder funds are usually injected by way of a subscription for shares of the project company, although there is usually no objection to shareholder loans so long as these are subordinated to the lenders’ loans and are non-interest bearing (or at least the requirement to pay interest is suspended until dividends are permitted to be paid (see below))
• The dividend/distribution policy of the sponsors. This will frequently be a source of much debate with the project lenders. On the one hand, most sponsors will be keen to extract profits at an early stage. The project lenders, however, will not be keen to see the sponsors taking out profits until the project has established and proved itself and the project lenders have been repaid at least some of their loans. It would be unusual for the project lenders to permit the payment of dividends (or the payment of interest on subordinated loans) prior to the date of the first repayment of the project loan and then only if the key project cover ratios will be satisfied after the payment of the dividends (see section 8.5 for an explanation of key cover ratios)
• Management of the project vehicle. Who will undertake this and how? Will the project vehicle have its own employees and management or will these be supplied by one or more of the sponsors? If one or more of the sponsors is to supply management and/or technical assistance to the project company, then the lenders will expect to see this arrangement formalised in an agreement between the sponsor in question and the project company
• Sale of shares and pre-emption rights. This will be of concern to sponsors and lenders alike. In particular, the lenders will want the comfort of knowing that the sponsor group that has persuaded them to lend to the project company in the first place will continue to be in place until the loans have been repaid in full.

Project implementation and management

The implementation of a project financing is a complicated, time-consuming and difficult operation. For most projects it is a case of years rather than months from inception of the project to reach financial close. It is not unheard of for some complex (and, perhaps, politically sensitive) projects to have a gestation period in excess of five years. The chart in Fig. 3 is an illustration of the more important milestones for a typical project and how long one might expect the process to take. However, each project will have a unique timetable, driven largely by the particular dynamics and circumstances of the project.

With so many parties involved having conflicting interests, the issue of effective project management assumes great significance in most project financings. It does not matter whether the overall responsibility is assumed by the sponsors (and their advisers) or by the lenders (and their advisers). What is crucial, however, is that one of the influential parties assumes overall control for managing the project from its inception to financial close. Without effective project management, a project can very easily go off the rails, with each of the parties singularly concentrating on issues and documents that are relevant to it. Because of the need to understand all aspects of the project with a view to assessing the overall risk profile, it is often the lenders (and their advisers) who are in the best position to manage effectively and steer a project to financial close.

Parties to A Project Financing

Parties and their roles

One of the complicating (and interesting) features of most projects is the considerable number of parties with differing interests that are brought together with the common aim of being involved to a greater or lesser extent with a successful project. It is one of the challenges of those involved with a project to ensure that all of these parties can work together efficiently and successfully and cooperate in achieving the project’s overall targets. It is inevitably the case that, although all of the parties will share the same overall aim in ensuring that the project is successful, their individual interests will vary considerably and, in many cases, will conflict. With many projects, there will be an international aspect which will involve different project parties located in different jurisdictions and there will often be tensions between laws and practices differing from one country to another.

A common feature in many project structures is that different parties will have particular roles to play. This is especially so with many multi-sponsor projects where, for example, one sponsor may also be the turnkey contractor, whereas another sponsor may be the operator and yet another sponsor may be a supplier of key raw materials to the project or an offtaker of product from the project. Frequently it is the case (and sometimes a requirement of local laws) that one of the sponsors is a local company. Even in those countries where the involvement of a local company is not a requirement, this can have many advantages particularly where the foreign sponsors have limited experience of business practices or laws in the host country. Further, the involvement of a local company offers a degree of comfort, for the foreign sponsors and lenders alike, that the project as a whole will not be unfairly treated or discriminated against.

No two projects will have the same cast of “players” but the following is a reasonably comprehensive list of the different parties likely to be involved in a project finance transaction.

Project company/borrower

The project company will usually be a company, partnership, limited partnership, joint venture or a combination of them. As noted in section 1.5, this will be influenced to a certain extent by the legal and regulatory framework of the host government. For example, in some jurisdictions it will be a legal requirement that the holder of a licence or concession be a company incorporated in that particular country. In other there may be strict requirements in particular industries as to foreign ownership of share capital or assets, particularly in strategically important industries.

The project company will in most cases be the vehicle that is raising the project finance and, therefore, will be the borrower. It will also usually be the company that is granted the concession or licence (in a concession-based financing) and who enters into the project documents. As has been seen in section 1, the project company is frequently a special purpose vehicle set up solely for the purposes of participating in a particular project. If the project vehicle is a joint venture then it is likely that there will be multiple borrowers. This can complicate the financing arrangements unless (as is likely to be the preference of the lenders) the joint venturers agree to be jointly and severally liable for the project’s debts. Where, however, the borrower is a special purpose vehicle, then the lenders would expect a newly incorporated company in the relevant jurisdiction and would seek to impose strict covenants on the ability of the borrower to undertake any non-project activities. The purpose of this is to ensure that the lenders are not exposed to any additional risks unrelated to the project itself. An example of the type and scope of such covenants is set out below.

Single Purpose Vehicle Covenants

The Project Company shall not:

• engage in any business or activity, apart from the ownership, management and operation of the Project and activities ancillary thereto as permitted by this Agreement and the Security Documents or
• save as contemplated in the Security Documents, create, incur or permit to subsist any Security Interest over all or any of its present or future assets, other than any Security Interest arising by operation of law and discharged within 30 days or
• make any advances, grant any credit (save in the routine course of its day-to-day business) or give any guarantee or indemnity to, or for the benefit of, any person or otherwise voluntarily assume any liability, whether actual or contingent, in respect of any obligation of any other person, except pursuant to the Security Documents or
• issue any further shares (other than to an existing direct or indirect shareholder) or alter any rights attaching to its issued share capital in existence at the date hereof or• save in accordance with the terms of this Agreement and the Security Documents, sell, lease, transfer or otherwise dispose of, by one or more transactions or series of transactions (whether related or not), the whole or any part of its assets or
• incur any indebtedness other than the Project Loan, unless such indebtedness is subordinated in terms of both payment and security to the satisfaction of the Project Lenders to all amounts due under this Agreement or• save in accordance with the terms of this Agreement and the Security Documents, acquire any asset or make any investment or
• amend its constitutional documents or
• change its financial year.

Sponsors/shareholders

The project sponsors are those companies, agencies or individuals who promote a project, and bring together the various parties and obtain the necessary permits and consents necessary to get the project under way. As has been noted in section 1, often they (or one of their associated companies) are involved in some particular aspect of the project. This might be the construction, operation and maintenance, purchase of the services output from the project or ownership of land related to the project. They are invariably investors in the equity of the project company and may be debt providers or guarantors of specific aspects of the project company’s performance. Some of the different ways in which the sponsors/shareholders invest in a project are explained in section 1.5.

The support provided by project sponsors varies from project to project and includes the giving of comfort letters, cash injection commitments, both pre- and post-completion, as well as the provision of completion support through guarantees and the like. Support is also likely to extend to providing management and technical assistance to the project company. The different types of sponsor support for a project are covered in more detail in section 6. [INSET IMAGE]

Third-party equity

These are investors in a project who invest alongside the sponsors. Unlike the sponsors, however, these investors are looking at the project purely in terms of a return on their investments for the benefit of their own shareholders. Apart from providing their equity, the investors generally will not participate in the project in the sense of providing services to the project or being involved in the construction or operating activities.

Third-party investors typically will be looking to invest in a project on a much longer time frame than, say, a typical contractor sponsor, who will in most cases want to sell out once the construction has been completed.

Many third-party investors are development or equity funds set up for the purposes of investing in a wide range of projects and they are starting to become a valuable source of capital for projects. Typically, they will require some involvement at board level to monitor their investment.

Banks

The sheer scale of many projects dictates that they cannot be financed by a single lender and, therefore, syndicates of lenders are formed in a great many of the cases for the purpose of financing projects. In a project with an international dimension, the group of lenders may come from a wide variety of countries, perhaps following their customers who are involved in some way in the project. It will almost certainly be the case that there will be banks from the host country participating in the financing. This is as much for the benefit of the foreign lenders as from a desire to be involved on the part of the local lenders. As with the involvement of local sponsors, the foreign lenders will usually take some comfort from the involvement of local lenders.

As is usually the case in large syndicated loans, the project loan will be arranged by a smaller group of arranging banks (which may also underwrite all or a portion of the loan). Often the arranging banks are the original signatories to the loan agreement with the syndication of the loan taking place at a later date. In such cases the arranging banks implicitly take the risk that they will be able to sell down the loan at a later stage.

However, participating in project financings is a very specialised area of international finance and the actual participants tend to be restricted to those banks that have the capability of assessing and measuring project risks. This is not to say that banks not having these skills do not participate in project financings, but for these banks the risks are greater as they must also rely on the judgement of the more experienced banks.

The complexity of most project financings necessitates that the arrangers are large banks with experience in this market, often having dedicated departments of specialists. For the smaller banks with an appetite for this kind of lending, however, there is usually no shortage of opportunities to participate in loans arranged by the larger banks.

Facility agent

As with most syndicated loans, one of the lenders will be appointed facility agent for the purposes of administering the loan on behalf of the syndicate. This role tends to assume an even greater significance in project financings as inevitably there are more administration matters that need undertaking. Usually, however, the role of the facility agent will be limited to administrative and mechanical matters as the facility agent will not want to assume legal liabilities towards the lenders in connection with the project. The documentation will, therefore, establish that the facility agent will act in accordance with the instructions of the appropriate majority (usually 66 2/3 per cent) of the syndicate who will vote and approve the various decisions that need to be taken throughout the life of a project. The documentation, however, may reserve for the facility agent some relatively minor discretions in order to avoid delays for routine consents and approvals.

Technical bank

In many project financings a distinction is drawn between the facility agent (who deals with the more routine day-to-day tasks under the loan agreement) and a bank appointed as technical bank, which will deal with the more technical aspects of the project loan. In such cases it would be the technical bank that would be responsible for preparing (or perhaps reviewing) the banking cases and calculating the cover ratios (see section 8.5 for a more detailed explanation of cover ratios). The technical bank would also be responsible for monitoring the progress of the project generally on behalf of the lenders and liaising with the external independent engineers or technical advisers representing the lenders. It will almost always be the case that the technical bank will be selected for its special ability to understand and evaluate the technical aspects of the project on behalf of the syndicate.

As with the facility agent, the technical bank will be concerned to ensure that it is adequately protected in the documentation and will be seeking to minimise any individual responsibility to the syndicate for its role as technical bank.

Insurance bank/account bank

In some of the larger project financings additional roles are often created for individual lenders, sometimes for no other reason than to give each of the arranging banks a meaningful individual role in the project financing. Two of these additional roles are as insurance bank and as account bank.

The insurance bank, as the title suggests, will be the lender that will undertake the negotiations in connection with the project insurances on behalf of the lenders. It will liaise with an insurance adviser representing the lenders and its job will be to ensure that the project insurances are completed and documented in a satisfactory manner and that the lenders’ interests are observed.

The account bank will be the lender through which all the project cash flows flow. There will usually be a disbursement account to monitor disbursements to the borrower and a proceeds account into which all project receipts will be paid. Frequently, however, there will be a number of other project accounts to deal with specific categories of project receipts (e.g. insurances, liquidated damages, shareholder payments, maintenance reserves, debt service reserves). A more detailed description of the project accounts and their operation is set out in section 8.2.

Multilateral and export credit agencies

Many projects are co-financed by the World Bank or its private sector lending arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), or by regional development agencies, for instance the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the African Development Bank or the Asian Development Bank.

These multilateral agencies are able to enhance the bankability of a project by providing international commercial banks with a degree of protection against a variety of political risks. Such risks include the failure of host governments to make agreed payments or to provide foreign exchange and failure of the host government to grant necessary regulatory approvals or to ensure the performance of certain participants in a project.

Export credit agencies also play a very important role in the financing of infrastructure and other projects in emerging markets. As their name suggests, the role of the agencies is to assist exporters by providing subsidised finance either to the exporter direct or to importers (through buyer credits). Details of the various multilateral agencies and ECAs and a description of the type of financing support they each provide in relation to projects are set out in section 9.

Construction company

In an infrastructure project the contractor will, during the construction period at least, be one of the key project parties. Commonly, it will be employed directly by the project company to design, procure, construct and commission the project facility assuming full responsibility for the on-time completion of the project facilities usually referred to as the “turnkey” model.

The risks associated with the construction phase are discussed in more detail in section 3.4. The contractor will usually be a company well known in its field and with a track record for constructing similar facilities, ideally in the same part of the world. In some large infrastructure projects a consortium of contractors is used. In other cases an international contractor will join forces with a local contractor. In each of these cases one of the issues that will be of concern to both the project company and the lenders is whether the contractors in the joint venture will assume joint and several liability or only several liability under the construction contract. This may be dictated by the legal structure of the joint venture itself (e.g. whether it is an unincorporated association or a true partnership, see section 1.5 for a discussion of the key differences). Lenders, for obvious reasons, will usually prefer joint and several liability.

Although most projects are structured on the basis that there will be one turnkey contractor, some projects are structured on the basis that a number of companies are employed by the project company to carry out various aspects of the design, construction and procurement process which are carried out under the overall project management of either the project company or a project manager. This is not a structure favoured by lenders as it can lead to gaps in responsibilities for design and construction. Lenders will also usually prefer that the project company divests itself of responsibility for project management and that this is assumed by a creditworthy entity against whom recourse may be had if necessary. This is discussed further in section 5.3.

Operator

In most infrastructure projects, where the project vehicle itself is not operating (or maintaining) the project facility, a separate company will be appointed as operator once the project facility has achieved completion. This company will be responsible for ensuring that the day-to-day operation and maintenance of the project is undertaken in accordance with pre-agreed parameters and guidelines. It will usually be a company with experience in facilities management (depending upon the particular project) and may be a company based in the host country. Sometimes one of the sponsors will be the operator as this will often be the principal reason why that sponsor was prepared to invest in the project.

As with the contractor, the lenders will be concerned as to the selection of the operator. They will want to ensure that the operator not only has a strong balance sheet but also has a track record of operating similar types of projects successfully.

The contractor and operator are not usually the same company as very different skills are involved. However, both play a key role in ensuring the success of a project.

Experts

These are the expert consultancies and professional firms appointed by the lenders to advise them on certain technical aspects of the project. (The sponsors will frequently also have their own consultants/professionals to advise them.) The areas where lenders typically seek external specialist advice are on the technical/engineering aspects of projects as well as insurances and environmental matters. Lenders will also frequently turn to advisers to assist them in assessing market/demand risk in connection with the project.

Each of these consultancies/professional firms will be chosen for its expertise in the particular area and will be retained to provide an initial assessment prior to financial close and, thereafter, on a periodic basis. An important point to note is that these consultancies/professional firms are appointed by (and therefore answerable to) the lenders and not the borrower or the sponsors. However, the cost of these consultants/professional firms will be a cost for the project company to assume and this can be a cause of friction. It is usual, therefore, for a fairly detailed work scope to be agreed in advance between the lenders, the expert and the sponsors.

Host government

As the name suggests this is the government in whose country the project is being undertaken. The role of the host government in any particular project will vary from project to project and in some developing countries the host government may be required to enter into a government support agreement (see section 6.7). At a minimum, the host government is likely to be involved in the issuance of consents and permits both at the outset of the project and on a periodic basis throughout the duration of the project. In other cases, the host government (or an agency of the host government) may actually be the purchaser or offtaker of products produced by the project and in some cases a shareholder in the project company (although not usually directly but through government agencies or government controlled companies). It is usually the case that the host government will be expected to play a greater role in project financing (whether in providing support, services or otherwise) in the lesser developed and emerging countries.

Whatever the actual level of involvement the host government of a particular country plays in project financings, its general attitude and approach towards foreign financed projects will be crucial in attracting foreign investment. If there has been any history of less than even-handed treatment of foreign investors or generally of changing the rules, this may act as a serious block on the ability to finance projects in that country on limited recourse terms.

Suppliers

These are the companies that are supplying essential goods and/or services in connection with a particular project. In a power project, for example, the fuel supplier for the project will be one of the key parties. In other projects, a particular supplier may be supplying equipment and/or services required during either the construction or the operating phase of the project. Both the contractor and the operator would also fall under this category. Many of the comments made with respect to the contractor and the operator will also apply to the suppliers. However, it is not always the case that the suppliers (and for that matter the purchasers) are as closely tied into a project structure as, say, the contractor and operator. The lenders may not therefore be in a position to dictate security terms to them to the same extent.

Where there is no long-term supplier of essential goods and/or services to a project, both the lenders and the project company are necessarily taking the risk that those supplies will be available to the project in sufficient amounts and quality, and at reasonable prices.

Purchasers

In many projects where the project’s output is not being sold to the general public, the project company will contract in advance with an identified purchaser to purchase the project’s output on a long-term basis. For example, in a gas project there may be a long-term gas offtake contract with a gas purchaser. Likewise in a power project the purchaser/offtaker may be the national energy authority that has agreed to purchase the power from the plant. However, it is not always the case that there is an agreed offtaker. In some projects (such as oil projects) there will be no pre-agreed long-term offtake contract; rather the products will be sold on the open market and to this extent the banks will take the market risk.

In some projects essential supplies to the project (such as fuel) and the project’s output (e.g. electricity) are purchased by the project company or, as the case may be, sold on “take-or-pay” terms. In other words the purchaser is required to pay for what it has agreed to purchase whether or not it actually takes delivery. This type of contract is discussed in more detail in section 3.4.

Insurers

Insurers play a crucial role in most projects. If there is a major catastrophe or casualty affecting the project then both the sponsors and the lenders will be looking to the insurers to cover them against loss. In a great many cases, if there was no insurance cover on a total loss of a facility then the sponsors and lenders would lose everything. Lenders in particular, therefore, pay close attention not only to the cover provided but also to who is providing that cover. Most lenders will want to see cover provided by large international insurance companies and will be reluctant to accept local insurance companies from emerging market countries.

In some industries (e.g. the oil industry) some of the very large companies have set up their own offshore captive insurance companies, either for their own account or on a syndicate basis with other large companies. This is, in effect, a form of self-insurance and lenders will want to scrutinise such arrangements carefully to ensure that they are not exposed to any hidden risks.

In other cases, insurance cover for particular risks either may not be available or may be available only at prohibitive premiums or from insurers of insufficient substance or repute. In such cases the lenders will want to see that alternative arrangements are made to protect their interests in the event of a major catastrophe or casualty. These and other insurance issues are examined in more detail in section 7.

Other parties

There will be other parties such as financial advisers, rating agencies, local/regional authorities, accountants, lawyers and other professionals that have a role to play in many projects to add to the complexity. Add to this the fact that very often each of these parties will have its own separate legal and tax advisers and it can be seen that the task of legal coordination of these projects can (and frequently is) a difficult, time-consuming and expensive process. This makes effective project management an essential and key part of the success of the implementation of a project (see section 1.7).

Summary of key lenders’ concerns

Before agreeing to lend to a particular project, the lenders will pay specific attention to each of the parties that will have an involvement (however small) in the project, whether at inception, during the construction phase or during the operating phase. It is not an exaggeration to say that, in the case of many project financings, the robustness of the overall project structure is only as strong as its weakest link. The following are some of the key issues that the lenders will focus on:

• The creditworthiness of the parties and, in particular, whether they have sufficient financial resources to meet their obligations under the relevant project documents. If the lenders are not so satisfied, then they are likely to call for guarantees or letters of credit from parent companies or other banks and financial institutions to support these obligations
• Equally important is the ability of the parties to deliver and perform according to the specifications of the project documents. Do the parties have sufficient technical and management resources? Have they experience of similar projects in similar circumstances? Have they undertaken similar arrangements in the relevant country? These are all issues that the lenders will ask themselves before committing to a particular project
• What, if any, relationship does a particular project party have to the project company? As has been noted in this section, it is frequently the case that one of the sponsors will be the contractor, the operator or a major supplier to, or purchaser of output from, the project. In most cases this is likely to be viewed by the lenders favourably; but in some cases the lenders may be concerned to ensure that a proper arm’s-length relationship prevails
• Independence of the project parties, i.e. are they likely to be influenced in any way by local political considerations in such a way as might be detrimental to the lenders? Clearly, foreign parties are less likely to be susceptible to local political or other pressures than local companies and this can sometimes be a concern for lenders
• Continuity, i.e. will a particular project party continue to be involved in the particular project for the duration of the lenders’ involvement? Lenders will usually seek to impose restrictions on the transfer of obligations under project documents by key project parties and where this is not possible then the occurrence of such a transfer might constitute an event of default
• In the case of parties providing technical advice (such as engineers, insurance advisers and lawyers) to the lenders, do they have sufficient professional indemnity insurance cover in place to cover negligent advice? Negligent advice could turn out to be disastrous for the lenders and it would be unfortunate if in those circumstances they had no recourse to the source of such negligent advice
• The lenders will be concerned to ensure that each party that contracts with the project company is duly authorised to enter into contracts with the project company and that its obligations under these contracts constitute its legal, valid, binding and enforceable obligations. To ensure this, the lenders will require legal opinions from lawyers in the home jurisdiction of each such project party. Special attention will often be paid to ensuring the validity and enforceability of the obligations of governments and state authorities or institutions as all too frequently it seems questions arise over their role or participation in projects that are being privately financed

It will be apparent that in many of these instances the concerns of the lenders and the project company/sponsors will be the same, each wants to minimise the risk of external influences or events acting to the detriment of the project.

Project Financing Documentation

Role of documentation

The essence of project financing is the apportionment of project and other risks amongst the various parties having an interest in that project. The way in which this risk allocation is implemented is, essentially, through the complex matrix of contractual relations between the various project parties as enshrined in the documentation entered into between them. There is no general body of law in England (or elsewhere) that dictates how projects must be structured or how the risks should be shared amongst the project parties. Rather, each project must fit within the legal and regulatory framework in the various jurisdictions in which it is being undertaken or implemented. Accordingly, the contracts between the various project parties assume a huge significance and it is these documents that are the instruments by which many of the project risks are shared amongst the project parties. As will be apparent, there is no such thing as a standard set of project documents. Each project will have its own set of documents specially crafted for that particular project. Set out below is a brief description of some of the key documents found in many project financing structures. These documents can conveniently be grouped as follows:

• Shareholder/sponsor arrangements
• Loan and security documents
• Project documents.

Shareholder/sponsor documentation

Pre-Development Agreements

These are agreements entered into by two or more companies that have agreed to undertake a feasibility study in relation to a proposed project. As the arrangements between the parties will not usually be sufficiently well developed to warrant a formal shareholders’ agreement, this document can conveniently deal with such matters as initial decision-making and allocation of tasks in relation to investigating a particular project or proposal. Typically, the agreement would be for a limited duration and would be quite specific about the scope of the proposed arrangements and the terms upon which a party could withdraw from the arrangements. It would also deal with appointment of advisers and general cost sharing. One might also expect to see provisions relating to confidentiality and restrictions on competing. Similar agreements may also be entered into where parties join together to bid for a particular contract or concession and do not want to incur the cost or expense of a formal joint venture agreement or shareholders’ agreement unless they are successful in their bid.

Shareholders’ Agreement/Joint Venture Agreement

In those projects where the project is being undertaken using a special purpose vehicle owned by two or more shareholders, those shareholders will usually regulate the relationship between them by entering into a shareholders’ agreement. On the other hand, where a joint venture structure is used, a joint venture agreement will usually be entered into. A shareholders’ agreement in relation to a project will not differ greatly from a shareholders’ agreement relating to the ownership of any other company and will need to deal with items such as:

• Injection of share capital; how much, when and in what form
• Funding of the project company
• Voting requirements for particular matters
• Resolution of disputes
• Dividends policy
• Management of special purpose vehicle
• Disposal of shares and pre-emption rights.

A joint venture agreement will contain many of the same provisions although will not need to deal with those matters concerning the setting up and management of a special purpose vehicle. It will, however, have to deal with management of the project and voting in connection with the project generally

From the point of view of the project lenders, they are likely to be concerned with a number of issues with regard to the sponsors/shareholders. Perhaps the key issues for them will be:

• The identity of the sponsors/shareholders and their experience and creditworthiness. Where shareholders/sponsors nominate a subsidiary to undertake any responsibilities or obligations with regard to a particular project, then the project lenders may well demand guarantees from the parent companies to support their subsidiaries until the project debt is repaid
• If the shareholders/sponsors are committing management resources and/or expertise for the special purpose vehicle and/or the project, then the lenders will want to see these obligations spelt out in very clear terms and to know which shareholder/sponsor will be providing which services and on what terms. Quite often, these arrangements are set out in a separate management/supervision agreement
• If the shareholders/sponsors agree to put up further equity at a later date, then the terms and conditions upon which this equity is put up will need to be spelt out very clearly (in many, if not most, cases the lenders are likely to require that the shareholders put up their funds first or at least proportionate to loan drawdowns). From the perspective of the lenders, rather than take an assignment by way of security of such a commitment owed by the sponsors/shareholders to the project company, the lenders are likely to require direct equity undertakings from the sponsors/shareholders for a number of reasons. Amongst these is the fact that an assignee cannot claim for a loss in excess of that of the assignor and it might very well be the case that the lenders’ actual loss is considerably greater than that of the project company should the sponsors/shareholders default. It may also be the case that set-offs/counterclaims could exist between the project company and the sponsors/shareholders, which would have the effect of reducing the sponsors’/shareholders’ obligations. A further weakness is that an obligation to subscribe for equity in the project company will not survive the project company’s liquidation thus depriving the lenders of this source of funds when they might most need it. Further, any claims by the lenders for breach of such equity commitments would be a damages-based claim which suffers from the weaknesses, from a lender’s perspective, that the normal common law rules as to causation, remoteness and mitigation of damages will apply (see section 1.3 for a more detailed explanation of this issue). For the lenders it would be better for an equity commitment to be constructed as a financial guarantee or indemnity albeit limited to the amount of the equity commitment although this may well be resisted by the sponsors/shareholders.

If, as is often the case, the project company is a party to the shareholders’ agreement and is the beneficiary of any rights and/or benefits under this agreement, then the project lenders are likely to want an assignment by way of security of the benefit of this agreement as part of their overall security package.

Sponsors Shareholders Support Agreement

In some project financings, the sponsors/shareholders will enter into a support agreement with the project company and the lenders. This agreement is likely to contain a number of commitments that the lenders require of the sponsors/shareholders with respect to the project and the project company (some of which might otherwise be found in a sponsors’/shareholders’ agreement), including:

• A requirement to provide management and technical assistance (including, where necessary, secondment of key employees)
• A requirement to provide funding, whether through subscription for equity or by the provision of loans (it is likely that the lenders will require any loans to be unsecured and subordinated to the project loans)
• Restrictions on the ability of the sponsors/shareholders to dispose of their shares in the project company
• Any completion guarantees or cost overrun guarantees to be given by the sponsors/shareholders (or any of them)
• Any security requirements from the sponsors/shareholders supporting their commitments to provide equity at a later stage

Loan and security documentation

Project Loan Agreement

In most projects this will be a syndicated loan agreement entered into between the borrower, the project lenders and the facility agent. It will regulate the terms and conditions upon which the project loans may be drawn down and what items of project expenditure the loans may be used for. The agreement will contain the usual provisions relating to representations, covenants and events of default found in other syndicated loan agreements but expanded to cover the project, project documents and related matters. The provisions relating to the calculation and payment of interest will be similar for standard Euro-currency, loans except that in most projects interest will be capitalised during the construction period or until project revenues come on stream. [IMAGE] AgreementRepayment terms will vary from project to project and will often be tied to the receipt of project cash flows and/or the dedication of a minimum percentage of the project’s cash flow towards debt service. The agreement will normally provide for all project cash flows to flow through one of a number of project accounts maintained by the agent (or a security trustee or account bank) and charged to the project lenders. There will be detailed mechanics relating to the calculation of project cover ratios and the preparation of banking cases and forecasting information with respect to the project (see section 8.5 for a more detailed discussion of cover ratios). There will also be provision for the appointment of consultants, advisers and technical experts by the project lenders. The balance of the agreement will contain boilerplate provisions customarily found in Euro-currency loan documentation adapted, as appropriate, for a project financing.

Security Documents

The form of these will vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and will depend on the nature and type of assets that are the subject of the security. A more detailed description of the type of assets and security found in project financings is set out in section 6. In common law based jurisdictions the taking of security in relation to project financing is usually through a fixed and floating charge covering all of the property and assets of the project company. In civil law based and other legal systems, however, the position is usually more complex, with different documents being required for different categories of assets.

In those jurisdictions that recognise trusts, it is usually convenient to appoint a trustee (often one of the banks) to hold the security on trust for the lenders as this not only insulates the security from the insolvency of the institution holding the security but also facilitates the trading of rights and obligations by the banks without the risk of disturbing the security.

Where a security trustee is appointed by the project lenders, this is usually under a separate security trust deed which sets out the terms of appointment, rights, duties and obligations of the security trustee, as well as provides for the usual indemnity and exculpatory provisions for the benefit of the trustee. Also, the security trust deed may deal with the order of application of payments amongst the various groups of lenders, although this is frequently dealt with in a separate intercreditor agreement. The applicable governing law for a security document will depend to a great extent on the location of the asset over which security is being taken. The basic rules for determining the correct governing law for security assets is set out in section 6.9.

Project documents

Concession Agreements/Licences

In many projects, particularly Build-Operate-Transfer (“BOT”) projects, the concession agreement will be the key project document as it is the document that will vest in the project company the right to explore, exploit, develop or operate, as appropriate, the concession or other relevant rights to the project. At the other end of the spectrum, all that may be needed for a project company to be vested with the necessary legal rights to exploit is a licence. Thus, for example, in an oil and gas financing in the UK continental shelf, the project vehicle will be a beneficiary of (or the beneficiary of a share of) a licence issued by the Department of Energy and Climate Change which entitles it to explore for and exploit hydrocarbons on the terms set out in the licence (and certain model clauses applicable to the licence). On the other hand, in a BOT project, it will invariably be the case that the project vehicle (or its sponsors) will be granted a concession by the host government (or one of its agencies) with respect to the project. The concession agreement, often comprising a BOT obligation, but sometimes a build-own-operate obligation, is popular particularly in countries where political or budgetary constraints prevent governments from developing essential and increasingly expensive infrastructure in the public sector. A concession can offer the host government certain advantages, including:

• Minimising the impact of the project on its capital budget
• Introducing increased efficiency into the project
• Encouraging foreign investment and the introduction of new technology.

The BOT structure ends with the transfer back of the project to the relevant state authority at some future date. This may result in the state receiving a useful operational project, although sometimes the transfer is not provided to occur within the economic life of the project. The terms which may commonly be found in concession agreements are covered in some detail in section 4, but key features are:

• The grant of a concession for a designated period of time (from the lenders’ perspective this will need to exceed the term of the project loan by a comfortable margin)
• The duties and obligations imposed on the project company with respect to the project and the concession
• Certain undertakings given by the concession grantor, e.g. as to non-competition, provision of utilities and other services provisions concerning certain changes in law
• Where appropriate, payment of concession fees
• Default and forfeiture terms
• Assignments and transfers (the project lenders will want to be certain that they can have the benefit of the concession assigned to them by way of security)
• Termination terms, including handover provisions (e.g. education and training where applicable).

In addition to some of the points noted above, the project lenders will be concerned to ensure that the concession grantor cannot unilaterally vary or terminate the terms of the concession, that the concession is transferable to any purchaser of the project (or project vehicle) and that the concession grantor should also assume at least certain risks associated with change of law and/or force majeure circumstances. Depending on the circumstances of a particular project, the project lenders may want to enter into a direct agreement with the concession grantor to address a number of the above and other concerns (see section 6.6).

Construction Contracts

In an infrastructure project where the project lenders are taking all or any part of the construction/completion risk, the construction contract will be one of the key project documents. There are a number of standard form construction contracts in use but it is unlikely any of them will be suitable for a project-financed contract without significant amendment. The closest to a suitable international standard contract is probably the “Orange Book” published by FIDIC.

The most common arrangement is a turnkey contract, in which a single “general” contractor assumes all risk of on-time completion of a project which meets guaranteed performance standards. In a turnkey contract, the owner specifies overall performance and reliability standards for the plant, and the turnkey contractor assumes full responsibility for design, construction, supply, installation, testing and commissioning of the plant so as to enable it to meet those specified requirements. Subject to important limitations which the contract will contain, the turnkey contractor essentially provides an overall guarantee of the performance of all components and sub-contractors.

As an alternative arrangement to a turnkey contract, sponsors may consider that they have the necessary experience to manage the design and construction of the project facility and may wish to undertake this themselves, or to leave certain responsibilities for it with the project company. Sponsors may perceive that they will be able to achieve an overall cost or time saving if they perform a role in relation to some or all of the design or construction of the facility. If construction management responsibilities are undertaken by the project company or sponsors, lenders will need to be satisfied with their technical capacity and resources. They may wish to have additional sponsor support to ensure adequate cover against the absence of a single contractor that has overall responsibility and the likely consequences of mismanagement during design and construction.

Even less popular with lenders is a project management structure whereby a project management agreement is entered into with one project managing company which will then arrange for individual contractors to enter into contracts with the project company. In this case each of these individual contractors would carry out different parts of the project. One of the reasons lenders have a very strong preference for turnkey contracts is that they reduce the risk of claims arising between the different contractors and of unallocated responsibilities relating to the project. If a turnkey contract is not utilised, then the project lenders will need to spend considerably more time analysing the construction contracts and the risks arising from the construction arrangements.

The key provisions of a typical construction contract, and its significance for the arrangement of project finance, can be summarised as follows:

Price and payment terms

Contractors usually prefer to be paid by stage payments. Contracts for the provision of industrial plant commonly provide for a substantial advance payment upon or soon after contract signing and thereafter for agreed instalments of the price to be paid against achievement of specific progress “milestones”.

Contractors will tend to have a preference for minimising the transfer of risk under the contract, so that its terms provide for the price to be adjusted if unforeseen circumstances or events render the assumptions on which the original price was quoted inapplicable. Not surprisingly, project lenders, on the other hand, prefer as much certainty as possible about the price. They will seek to maximise the transfer of risks to the contractor and to maximise its liability for breaches of contract, at least sufficient to preserve the project company’s projected cash flow.

Lenders are likely to look at any provision for variation of the price very carefully as this may increase the risk for the project lenders by making it uneconomic for the project lenders to complete the project should they have to take it over following a default by the project company. Lenders will, for example, seek to require that their consent be obtained before the project company exercises its rights under the construction contract to instruct variations in the works being produced, or to suspend the work

The sponsors’ interests will not be exactly the same as those of the lenders. Sponsors will seek not only certainty of price, but also a competitive price. As regards the contractor’s liability for breaches of contract, sponsors will seek the optimum balance against price.

Completion

Construction contracts often permit the completion date to be postponed if the contractor is unable to comply with the construction contract date for reasons beyond its control. Project lenders prefer as much certainty as possible, but will usually accept postponement in limited specified circumstances. However, any provisions for postponement will need to be mirrored in the other project agreements, so that failure to achieve completion under the construction contract does not lead to the project company being in breach of the concession agreement and other relevant project agreements where a specified completion date is relevant.

The lenders will expect the contractor to be obliged to pay liquidated damages for any delay at a level which will at least cover interest payable under the project loan agreement during the period of delay, together with (ideally) a sum sufficient to cover operating costs of the project vehicle during the period of delay. Most contractors will seek to include some form of limit on their liability for liquidated damages and, clearly, project lenders will need to take a view on an appropriate limit if this is acceptable in principle.

The construction contract will usually provide that completion occurs on the date upon which an independent consultant (usually appointed by the project company, subject to the lender’s approval) certifies that the facility is complete and all commissioning and performance tests have been successfully passed.

Force majeure

Force majeure is a concept used to excuse a party to a contract from performing its obligations when prevented from doing so by events or circumstances beyond its control. There is further discussion of the significance of this with respect to project financing in section 3.5.

Unforeseen ground risk

This is the risk that construction may be slowed down or stopped and/or that changes in design or work methods may be required because the geotechnical condition of the site is not as could reasonably be expected. It can be used to trigger an increase in price or to delay the date by which completion takes place. The lenders will usually expect the contractor to take this risk.

Warranties

The contractor will normally be required to warrant the quality and fitness for purpose of its work. If the project company has given warranties of a construction nature to the concession grantor, the project lenders may want those warranties to be matched by corresponding warranties from the contractors.

Insurance

Insurance is important in a financing context, not least because the project lenders view insurance as part of their security. In the construction phase of a project, the contractor may be responsible for insuring the interests of the project company and lenders in addition to its own and sub-contractors’ interests in respect of “contractors all risks”. See section 7 for a more general discussion of project insurances.

Consents

The construction contract or contracts will usually provide who is responsible for obtaining the governmental consents and permits required to carry out the project. Amongst the key consents may be the consents or approvals from the regulatory authorities/host government in the host country that all local health and safety, environmental, fire and building regulations and requirements have been satisfied at “completion”.

Limitations on liability

Contractors will usually attempt to limit their liability for breach of contract. Liability may be limited to a specified amount in respect of particular breaches or in some cases excluded completely. Project lenders will prefer either no limit at all or very high limits.

Operating and Maintenance Agreements

Once the project is completed and commissioned it will then move into the operation stage. The operation of most projects will require an experienced and skilful operator and the performance of the operator in the performance of its tasks will be crucial to the overall success of the project. Both the project company and the lenders will be keen to ensure that the chosen operator is a company that has a proven track record of operating similar projects. Sometimes it is the case that the project company itself will operate the project although the lenders will want to be satisfied that it has both the experience and the necessary staffing, in place to undertake this role. More often, the operator is a third party that specialises in project and facilities operation and management and who will enter into an operating and maintenance agreement on arm’s-length terms with the project company. The usual objectives of an operating and maintenance agreement will include:

• Allocating the risk of operating and maintaining the project to the operator (and thereby insulating the project company and the lenders from this risk)
• Ensuring that the project is operated in a manner that maximises the revenue-earning capacity of the project
• Ensuring that the facilities are operated and maintained at levels and according to budgets agreed with the project company and the lenders.

There are three basic structures for an operating and maintenance agreement.

Fixed price structure

Under this structure the operator is paid a fixed price for operating the project. If there are cost overruns on the operating budget, then the operator will bear this risk. Conversely, if the operator is able to save costs, then it will earn greater profits. Because the operator in this structure is bearing the operating risk, fixed price contracts tend to be more expensive.

Cost plus structure

Under this structure the project company will pay the operator an agreed fixed fee together with the costs incurred by the operator in operating the project. The fixed fee will represent the profit for the operator, who will look to pass on all the costs of operating the project to the project company. Under this structure, therefore, the project company is assuming the risk of increased operating costs. In view of this, the project company would require the right to terminate the contract at relatively short notice if the operator was not operating the project on budget or efficiently. In most cases, however, a degree of operating risk will be assumed by the operator in order to incentivise the operator to perform efficiently and cost-effectively.

Incentive/penalty structure

Under this structure the operator’s remuneration will be tied to strict performance targets so that should the operator achieve the agreed targets it will be paid a bonus. Conversely, should the operator fail to achieve the agreed performance targets, it will suffer a penalty in the form of reduced compensation. The performance targets will be agreed in advance and set out in detail in the contract and will cover all principal aspects of the operation and maintenance of the project for which it is agreed the operator is responsible. It is usually the case that the maximum level of bonuses or penalties is capped in the contract.

Lenders invariably have a strong preference for the incentive/penalty structure as this not only insulates the project company from much of the operating risks associated with a project but also offers the best prospect of the project being efficiently operated on budget.

Fuel Supply Agreements

Many projects will rely on an essential supply of fuel such as coal, oil, gas or wood in order to operate the facility. Both the project company and the lenders will be concerned to ensure that the project has access to a reliable and secure source of fuel for the entire duration of the project. Having obtained a secure source of fuel supply, the next key issue will be whether the project company is able to contract with an agreed supplier on a long-term basis on a pre-agreed price structure. If the project company is unable to achieve this, then it will be forced to purchase its fuel requirements on the spot market, which will expose it to both fuel availability and fuel price risks.

Having secured an agreed fuel supply, the project company will then need to make the necessary arrangements for the supply of the fuel to the project. This may involve a third party or the fuel supplier may assume this responsibility itself.

There are, broadly speaking, two different types of fuel supply agreements commonly used in project financing.

Take-or-pay contracts

Under this arrangement the project company agrees to take delivery of an agreed volume of fuel at an agreed price over a specified period. If the project company does not take delivery of the agreed level of fuel, then it must nevertheless pay for it, although there is usually provision in the contract for the project company to take all or an agreed amount of such forgone fuel in a subsequent period. The fuel supplier’s obligation is to supply the agreed level of fuel at the stipulated price.

Sole supplier contracts

Under this arrangement the project company agrees with a single supplier that it will purchase the project’s entire fuel requirement from that supplier. However, the actual amount of the fuel requirement and the price to be paid for it will not necessarily be specified and, in any event, the project company will only pay for the fuel it actually takes. The fuel supplier, on the other hand, may or may not be obliged to supply all the project’s fuel requirements.

Lenders are likely to prefer take-or-pay contracts as this secures for the project a secure source of supply at an agreed price.

Sales/Offtake Agreements

These will be important where the project is dependent upon a guaranteed offtake for the project’s products. A long-term sales contract may provide for sales on arm’s-length terms, with the price calculated by reference to market prices at the relevant time,but not commit the purchaser to buy. Ideally, and this is what the lenders will be looking for, the project company would require a guaranteed cash flow from which to repay the project loan. Different types of sales agreement have been developed to guarantee the amount and/or continuity of cash flow. The most popular of these are:

• “Pass through agreements”
• “Take-or-pay agreements”

Where charges are calculated on a pass-through basis, they are calculated by reference to the costs incurred by the project company which are passed through to the buyer. This is a common structure in power projects. Typically, the costs passed through to the buyer can include the whole or any part of the costs of purchasing fuel or other commodities required for the project, repayments of principal to the project lenders, payments of interest to the project lenders, operating and maintenance costs, administrative costs, insurance costs and an amount representing the sponsor’s return on capital. In each case, the costs passed through are those relating to the period to which the payment by the purchaser/offtaker relates.

In a take-or-pay agreement, as is noted above, the buyer pays for supplies of the project company’s product, provided that they are available for delivery even if the buyer does not require them. There will often be a “hell or high water” provision which will attempt to establish that the buyer must pay despite non-performance by the seller or the existence of circumstances which would otherwise frustrate the contract. The type of sales/offtake agreement will depend, to a large extent, on the product in question. For example, in the gas industry, long-term offtake contracts are very common, whereas in the oil industry they are rare, most oil being traded spot or in the short futures market.

One of the issues that needs to be addressed when considering the use of take-or-pay (and similar) contracts is the enforceability of them. There are two potentially problematic areas. First, there is a risk that in some jurisdictions they may be attacked on the basis that they comprise a penalty. Second, they may be attacked on the basis of inadequacy of consideration. So far as English law is concerned, the better view is probably that most take-or-pay agreements will not be viewed as amounting to the imposition of penalties. On the consideration point, English law does not concern itself with the adequacy of consideration. However, other jurisdictions may (and probably do) take a different view on these issues and both the project company and the lenders will be concerned to check the exact legal position.

Other Project Documents

Other relevant project documents, depending on the project, might include through-put agreements, tolling agreements, technology/operating licences, consultancy contracts, utility agreements, refining agreements and transportation contracts.

In all cases, however, it will be crucial to ensure that, so far as possible, all of these agreements fit together so that if, for example, the project company assumes obligations to one party, it is able to pass those obligations on to another party. It must be borne in mind that any residual liabilities resting with the project company will ultimately incurred by either the project sponsors or the project lenders, as appropriate. Indeed, both of these parties will be keen to ensure that any such liabilities are in fact incurred by the party most able to manage and/or avoid them.

Force majeure

The legal concept of force majeure is not a part of the English common law - it is a civil law concept that can be found in the Napoleonic Code. English law on the other hand has a doctrine of frustration of contracts. There are important differences. The doctrine of frustration is much narrower and occurs only when, without fault of either party, the contractual obligation in question has become incapable of being performed because the circumstances in which performance is called for would render it a thing totally different from that which was contemplated by the contract. In these circumstances, the parties will be discharged from all their future obligations under the contract and, in most cases, the loss as a result of such termination will lie where it falls- a result that may be neither fair nor appropriate.

Force majeure, on the other hand, is a less arbitrary and strict concept that nevertheless seeks to protect the parties from the effects of unforeseen events or circumstances. In the context of project financings, few participants are prepared to rely on the general law (even where the doctrine of force majeure is recognised by that law) and appropriate force majeure clauses will be included in all the key project documents setting out the basis on which parties may be excused from performance in specified circumstances (but not in the loan and security documents, at least so as to benefit the borrower). Force majeure normally involves four criteria. The event or circumstance must:

• Make performance of the obligations impossible
• Be irresistible
• Be external in the sense of involving no fault or negligence on the party affected
• The party affected must have done everything in its power to perform the obligations

The precise terms of each force majeure clause will be negotiated between the relevant parties concerned and will reflect, partly, their respective bargaining positions as well as the overall circumstances of the transaction (an example is set out in Fig. 7). Further, depending on the particular circumstances, the clause may or may not apply to both parties to the contract. The clause, even in its most basic form, will be an essential tool in allocating specific project risks between the parties and will not necessarily apply to all of the obligations of a party under a contract (e.g. it may not apply to payment obligations if these are intended to be of a “hell or high water” nature).

Specimen Force Majeure Clause

1. Subject to sub-clause (3), the Contractor shall have no liability for a consequence of any of the following events if that event and consequence was neither preventable nor foreseeable:

(a) a flood, storm or other natural event or

(b) any war, hostilities, revolution, riot or civil disorder or

(c) any destruction, breakdown (permanent or temporary) or malfunction of, or damage to, any premises, plant, equipment or materials (including any computer hardware or software or any records) or

(d) the introduction of, or any amendment to, a law or regulation, or any change in its interpretation or application by any authority or

(e) any action taken by a governmental or public authority or an agency of the Economic Community, including any failure or delay to grant a consent, exemption or clearance or

(f) any strike, lockout or other industrial action or (g) any unavailability of, or difficulty in obtaining, any plant, equipment or materials or

(h) any breach of contract or default by, or insolvency of, a third party (including an agent or sub-contractor), other than a company in the same group as the Contractor or an officer or employee of the Contractor or of such a company or (i) any other similar event to any of the foregoing.

2. For this purpose an event or the consequence of an event was neither preventable nor foreseeable if and only if the Contractor could not have prevented it by taking steps which it could reasonably be expected to have taken and the Contractor could not, as at the date of this Contract, have reasonably been expected to take the risk of it into account by providing for it in this Contract, by insurance or otherwise.

3. Sub-clause (1) does not apply unless the Contractor:

(a) notifies the Owner of the relevant event and consequence as soon as possible after it occurs;

(b) promptly provides the Owner with any further information which the Owner requests about the event (or its causes) or the consequence; and

(c) promptly takes any steps (except steps involving significant additional costs) which the Owner reasonably requires in order to reduce the Owner’s losses or risk of losses.

4 It is for the Contractor to show that a matter is a consequence of an event covered by sub-clause (1), that the event and the consequence were neither preventable nor foreseeable and that it has satisfied the conditions set out in sub-clause (3).

The force majeure clause will specify the circumstances in which it will operate and will include the normal range of acts and circumstances, such as acts of God, embargos, natural disasters, earthquakes, lightning, tidal waves and (frequently subject to debate) strikes. The circumstances described may or may not be expressed to be non-exhaustive in their scope. A party claiming force majeure will usually be required to take all reasonable steps available to it to investigate the effect of the event, and it is often the case that the duration of the contract will be extended during the subsistence of the event, subject to a long-stop date when the contract could be terminated by either party.

Although a force majeure clause is not considered by the English courts to be an exemption clause, its effect will be, arguably, the same in that a party may be relieved of an obligation or liability under the contract (either by extending or suspending the time period for compliance or extinguishing it altogether) once the clause has been triggered. It comes as no surprise, therefore, that force majeure clauses are governed by similar rules to those regulating exemption clauses. In both cases, the judicial tendency is to construe the clause against the party seeking to rely upon it. Thus, the party seeking to rely upon a force majeure clause must prove that a force majeure event out of its control has occurred which prevents it from performing the contract, and that it has taken all reasonable steps to mitigate the consequences of this.

Lender requirements for project documents

Because project agreements play a central role in allocating risks between the parties in any project financing, lenders will take great care to review the terms of the project agreements to satisfy themselves that these documents accurately record the agreed risk allocation. The following are some of the key points that lenders will look out for:

• If the lenders are taking security over the project agreement, can the project agreement be assigned or is the consent of the counterparty required?
• Does the project agreement prevent the project company from charging any of the project assets?
• What rights of termination does the counterparty have for breach by the project company? Are these rights too wide? (Note that the lenders would usually seek a right to step in and cure a breach by the project company under a direct agreement with the counterparty - see section 6.6)
• The existence of any expiry or revocation provisions in relevant licences and concession agreements
• If the project agreement includes force majeure provisions, is the project company protected by similar provisions in other project agreements where the project company itself has obligations that might be affected?
• Does the project agreement contain liquidated damages provisions for a default by the counterparty? If so, are they set at a high enough level and, more importantly, are they enforceable (and not void as a penalty as might be the case in certain jurisdictions)?
• Lenders will be extremely wary of clauses in project agreements that allow the counterparty to forfeit a concession or licence interest consequent upon the default of the project company; equally, they will be uncomfortable with a partial forfeiture right (often referred to as withering clause)
• Does the project agreement grant any pre-emption rights or options in favour of a third party in the case of a project company default or where the project company is seeking to terminate (or the lenders are seeking to enforce their security)?
• If the project agreement contains any set-off clauses allowing the counterparty to set off against any non-performance by the project company any sums payable by the counterparty to the project company, then the lenders will want to ensure that the provisions only cover non-performance in relation to the project agreement in question and do not cover other non-project or unrelated contracts
• Any clauses that make the project agreement’s effectiveness conditional upon the occurrence of any events or the granting of any permits or consents will be viewed with caution and it is likely that the availability of finance itself will be conditional upon the lifting or satisfaction of such conditions
• Payment terms in project agreements must be precisely and carefully drawn, they must specify in which currency payment is required and where and how payment is to be made (usually direct to the lenders’ agent); payments should be made without reduction or withholding for taxes, unless required by law and then in such circumstances grossed up
• Where appropriate, bonding requirement (especially in construction contracts) should be clearly stated and the lenders will want to be satisfied as to the strength of the bonding company or bank and that the bonds can be assigned to the lenders.

In a joint venture agreement and, are other joint venture parties given a charge over the project company’s interest to secure any defaults by the project company? Contrast this with possible forfeiture rights mentioned above

• Are there any compulsory abandonment and “take out” provisions included in a project agreement between the sponsors that require one of them to assume the liabilities of the others in the event one wishes to withdraw from the project
• Governing law is frequently an issue as lenders in international financing transactions have a clear preference for English and New York law as opposed to local law; sometimes, especially with governmental entities, this is difficult for lenders to impose (see section 8.6)
• Arbitration clauses in project agreements are not popular with lenders that would, in most cases, prefer the legal certainty of the judicial system especially if the agreement is governed by English or New York law. However, in some jurisdictions it may be the case that the judicial system is not equipped to deal with sophisticated international disputes and in these circumstances arbitration may be the only sensible route for lenders.

Project Structures

Approach to financing

We have already seen that sponsors may choose to raise finance directly themselves for financing a project or indirectly through a project vehicle. If they choose the direct financing route then the financing may be raised either on conventional balance sheet terms or on limited recourse terms. Indeed, whichever of these routes is followed, the vast majority of projects worldwide that are debt financed are financed using loans as opposed to other forms of finance. That is not to say that other forms of finance are not available for projects; it is simply that the flexibility offered by loan structures makes them appealing for many project sponsors.

Although the great majority of limited recourse funding for projects is raised through the international capital markets by way of loans, usually on a syndicated basis, it is unlikely that the structure for any one project will be identical to the structure used in another project, although there may very well be strong similarities. There are, however, certain templates that have been developed by bankers, lawyers and others and this section will examine a number of the more commonly used templates. Some hypothetical projects will be used in order to make these structures more readily understandable.

There are two sources of finance for projects, apart from loans, that are sometimes utilised each one of those has a different structure from the conventional loan structure. These are outlined below.

Bonds

A potential source of finance for projects is the bond market. In the US, many projects have been funded by bonds and in the UK a number of the Government’s Private Finance Initiative (PFI) projects were funded using bonds (the majority with monoline insurance cover and some where the bondholders were taking pure project risk). However, whilst the bond market has been an important source of funds for projects, it is likely that the vast majority of projects will be financed through loans rather than bonds as loans are seen as more flexible. The main attraction of the bond market is the availability of long-term fixed rate funding, which is not only generally cheaper than bank borrowing but also offers the possibility of lengthening the repayment profile of the project debt which can improve the project’s economics significantly. However, there are a number of disadvantages to using bonds to finance projects, including the following:

• Consents and waivers from the lenders are frequently sought in project financings and it is considerably more difficult to obtain these from (often unidentifiable) bondholders. Bond trustees will have certain discretions but these may not be wide enough to cover either material changes to project timetables etc. or the situation where a project runs into difficulties
• Bonds tend to be structured on the basis that payment by the bondholders is in one large sum at closing. This does not fit very well with most project structures where drawdowns by the project company are usually made periodically against, say, an engineer’s or architect’s certificate confirming completion of a relevant project milestone. The solution to this in most bond financings is to deposit the bond proceeds in a deposit account with the bond security trustee and allow withdrawals by the project company in much the same way as drawdowns under a conventional loan structure. However, there are two difficult issues here. First, what happens to these funds if there is a default before they are withdrawn - do they belong to the bondholders, the lenders or the project company? Second, it will almost certainly be the case that the interest rate on the deposit account will be less than the interest rate payable on the bonds - the “negative carry effect” as it is commonly referred to. This can be a significant additional cost for the project and will need to be taken into account when measuring the attractions of a project bond
• Bonds tend to have less onerous warranties, covenants and events of default compared with loans. One of the reasons for this is that because, in many cases, bondholders are anonymous it is much more difficult, expensive and cumbersome to arrange meetings of bondholders for the purposes of determining what action should be taken as a result of any defaults. Accordingly, bond trustees have a vested interest in structuring bond documentation so as to avoid insignificant events amounting to defaults. This, of course, conflicts with the approach of project finance lenders whose usual approach is to cast warranties, covenants and events of default in very strict terms so as to maintain a high degree of control over the project.

Another reason advanced in favour of loans is the likely lack of appetite by bond investors for pure project risks. Typically the bond market likes to invest in sound companies with strong balance sheets rather than the speculative more risky ventures. This is not to say that some potential bond investors may not have an appetite for project risk (and there is clearly evidence that there is a project bond market in the US and that there is a market emerging in the UK), but they are unlikely to be able to satisfy anything other than a very small proportion of the projects looking to raise finance. One significant development in recent years, however, has been the liberalising of the US securities markets towards overseas issuers. A key change was the introduction by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 1990 of Rule 144A under the US Securities Act of 1933. Rule 144A sets forth a non-exclusive safe harbour from the registration requirements of the Securities Act for the resale of certain privately placed securities to large institutional investors (“Qualified Institutional Buyers” or “QIBs”) by persons other than the issuer of such securities. Thus, transactions meeting the requirements of Rule 144A are not subject to the relatively onerous and expensive registration requirements of the Securities Act, including the requirement that financial statements of the issuer be reconciled to US generally accepted accounting principles. This has made it significantly easier and cheaper for a non-US issuer to tap the huge institutional capital markets in the US and a number of sponsors have taken advantage of this to fund all or a part of a project’s financing requirements. An example of a bond structure for a project is set out below.

[INSERT IMAGE]

Leasing

Lease finance is also a possibility, particularly in projects involving heavy capital goods. However, to date, leasing has only played a very small part in the overall financial equation and there are no real signs that the lessor market in the UK is opening up to large scale infrastructure projects. There are a number of reasons for this. First, the tax capacity available in the UK for investing in such projects is fairly limited. The available tax capacity quickly gets used up by the small to medium ticket lease market. At the big ticket end of the market, most of the financing has been done on assets such as ships, aircraft and (more recently) satellites. It is easy to see why institutional lessors prefer to finance these types of capital assets rather than investing in, say, turbines for a power project. Second, there are ownership liabilities that go hand-in-hand with leasing capital equipment that cannot always be satisfactorily laid off through documentation. Lessors traditionally are very risk averse creatures and, therefore, the prospect of becoming embroiled in complex disputes in a project where they may be the owner of one of the principal assets in question is not an appealing one to them. Third, the introduction of a lessor into a project structure will add considerably to the complexity of the overall structure and, therefore, to the documentation to an extent that the possible tax advantages may very well not be wholly justified by the additional complexities and expense involved.

In those areas where finance leases have been put in place for projects in the UK (mainly power stations and cable financings) they have usually been structured on the basis that the finance lessor does not take any project risk and the “tax risk” is shared with the lenders.

So far as the project risk is concerned, the finance lessor would generally look to receive a guarantee or letter of credit to cover it against any project risk that it may be exposed to. This principle is usually acceptable to all parties as these are risks that the lenders will be accustomed to assuming. The issue of tax risk, however, is not always so easy to solve. Tax risk is the risk that there is an adjustment in the tax regime in a manner which reduces or eliminates the anticipated tax benefit of the lease. The variation of tax rates, the availability of tax allowances, the rules on group relief etc., could all have an adverse effect on the lease cash flows and economics of the project as a whole. The problem, of course, for finance lessors is that if they are to assume any of the tax risks they are, in effect, also taking a credit risk on the project company and, therefore, in effect, in the project itself. Another difficult issue with introducing leasing into project financing is the intercreditor arrangements between the lenders and the lessor. Although both groups will share many of the same objectives in respect of the project, there will be areas where their interests conflict. A dramatic example of this would be where there is a default under the lease that entitles the lessor to terminate the lease and dispose of the plant and equipment being leased. This, of course, is something that would not be acceptable to the lenders and so an arrangement has to be reached between them whereby the lessor forgoes its right to terminate the lease automatically in these circumstances. One solution in such circumstances is for the lenders to set up a company to buy out the lease thereby allowing the lessor to be paid out. However, this will not always be an acceptable solution to the parties. Other difficult issues include the relative degree of control and supervision that may be exercised by each party. Intercreditor negotiations between lenders and lessors can be extremely difficult and time consuming, but this may be a price worth paying if the overall tax benefits for the project company are significant.

North Sea model

As with most infrastructure projects, oil and gas projects in the North Sea can be conveniently split into the development/construction phase and the operating/producing phase. In the early days of financing North Sea oil and gas projects, lenders were wary of taking risks during the development/construction phase and would usually seek to pass these risks on to the sponsors. Traditionally, this was done in one of two ways. If the project financing vehicle was a special purpose vehicle and had no assets beyond the project being financed, then the lenders would require either a completion guarantee or a cost overrun guarantee or a combination of both. They would also be likely to require some form of management and technical assistance support so that they could feel comfortable that the project company would have the necessary management and technical resources available to it to undertake the project. Where the special purpose vehicle route is not used and instead the sponsor raises limited recourse funds directly, then the transaction is usually structured so that the loans are drawn down on the basis that they are full recourse loans to the sponsor until “converted” into limited recourse loans. Typically, conversion would take place when the lenders are satisfied that mechanical completion of the platform and other facilities has occurred and certain operating tests have been completed to the satisfaction of the independent engineers acting for the lenders. There will usually be a number of other conditions precedent to conversion. One of these conditions is likely to be the provision of the full security package for the loan (which will probably not have been provided at the outset so long as the loan remains a corporate loan) and another is likely to be the satisfaction of certain cover ratios immediately following conversion. Some loans have been structured on the basis that if the conversion of the full amount of the loan will result in any of the cover ratios being infringed, then only a proportion of the loan will be converted. (The use of cover ratios in project financing is discussed in section 8.5.)

As most developments in the North Sea are undertaken on a joint venture basis, this has implications for the lenders. Most of the financings in the North Sea have been structured on the basis that individual participants in a production licence are obliged to raise finance themselves for meeting their share of development and operating costs in connection with the project. In some production licences, this will mean that some of the participants will finance their share of costs from their own resources whilst others might raise limited recourse finance to finance their share. The principal security available for lenders is the interest of the participant in the production licence, the field facilities, the operating agreement (or joint venture agreement), any transportation contracts and sales/offtake contracts, the hydrocarbons being produced (but not whilst in the ground when they remain vested in the Crown) and the project insurances. This is a not untypical list of assets over which a lender would seek to take security, but in the context of the North Sea there are some problem areas for lenders. One of these is the likelihood that the operating (or joint venture) agreement among the participants is likely to contain forfeiture (or withering) provisions where an individual participant is in default in meeting cash calls or otherwise under the operating (or joint venture) agreement. A lender’s security is, in these circumstances, likely to be subordinated to the interest of the other participants and this will diminish the value of the security for the lenders. Another issue for lenders is that, although it is possible to take charge over exploration and production licences, the Department of Energy will need to consent prior to any actual enforcement of this security and to approve any proposed transferee of a licence. Obviously there is an element of risk here for the lenders that this consent/approval may not be forthcoming.

Lenders have, however, over the years become quite comfortable with limited recourse financing in the North Sea and have shown an appetite for being prepared to accept the project, legal and political risks associated with lending on a limited recourse basis.

Borrowing Base model

Whilst the norm is for projects to be financed on a single project basis, this is not exclusively the case. The borrowing base model is one that was developed in the US, in particular, in relation to the financing of oil and gas assets. Using this approach, borrowers would be entitled to draw down funds for financing one or more designated projects subject to the satisfaction of one or more overall borrowing base cover ratios being satisfied. In other words, so long as the aggregated future cash flows from all the projects covered the total loans and the servicing of them, the lender would not concern itself with the fact that, when viewed on a project-by-project basis, a borrower might not satisfy the usual cover ratios specified by the lender for a one-off project. In order to safeguard its loans, the lender would take security over all of the assets included within the borrowing base formula.

This approach has proved extremely popular especially with the smaller US that would be able to use excess equity on one project to cover either start-up costs or cost overruns on another project.

This borrowing base model has been used for financing projects in the North Sea but only on an exceptional basis. For the very reason that it particularly suits smaller investments, it can be quite a cumbersome and expensive structure to establish for larger investments particularly those having a longer maturity (for example, in excess of five years, which is likely to be the case for most investments in the North Sea). There are also difficult security issues that arise, particularly with respect to the cross-collateralisation aspects and persuading both the other field participants and the Department of Energy and Climate Change to accept this approach.

A variation on the borrowing base approach in the context of the North Sea has been the use of multi-field financing where, say, two or three fields are grouped together and financed at the same time. Although similar in approach to the borrowing base model, this is a less flexible approach in that it really amounts to one or more individual financings grouped together and cross-collateralised for security purposes. Some of the flexible features of the borrowing base approach will be available (e.g. use of surplus equity); others may not (such as use of loan proceeds).

The borrowing base or multi-field approach for the reasons stated above is likely to be of limited appeal to both sponsors and project lenders alike. The key advantages, however, of the borrowing base approach are:

• It is likely to be considerably cheaper in terms of establishment costs than the costs associated with establishing, say, three or four single field financings
• It is likely that less management time will be absorbed in administering the borrowing base facility
• Over-performing assets can be used to support under-performing assets and
• There may be flexibility within the borrowing base facility to substitute assets within the overall structure.

The disadvantages, on the other hand, are the cross-defaulting of all of the individual projects within the borrowing base structure, this is difficult to avoid. Also, it locks the sponsor into one group of lenders for all the relevant projects which might reduce both competition and flexibility.

“Build Operate Transfer” “BOT” model

Many projects around the world are structured and financed on the BOT model. There are a great number of varieties (and accompanying acronyms) and some of the more common are: DBFO: design, build, finance, operate DBOM: design, build, operate, maintain

BOT: build, operate, transfer DBOT: design, build, operate, transfer

FBOOT: finance, build, own, operate, transfer BOD: build, operate, deliver

BOO: build, own, operate BOOST: build, own, operate, subsidise, transfer

BOL: build, operate, lease BRT: build, rent, transfer

The basis for all projects structured on the BOT model is likely to be the granting of a concession or licence (or similar interest) for a period of years involving the transfer and re-transfer of all or some of the project assets. There are many definitions describing BOT projects and one of the more illustrative is:

“A project based on the granting of a concession by a principal, usually a government, to a promoter, sometimes known as the concessionaire, who is responsible for the construction, financing, operation and maintenance of a facility over the period of the concession before finally transferring to the principal, at no cost to the principal, a fully operational facility. During the concession period, the promoter owns and operates the facility and collects revenues in order to repay the financing and investment costs, maintains and operates the facility and makes a margin of profit.”

The key features are, therefore, the grant of a concession, the assumption of responsibility by the promoter (or sponsor) for the construction, operation and financing of the project and the re-transfer at the end of the concession period of the project assets to the grantor of the concession. A very common variant of the BOT model is the BOO (Build Own Operate) project which is structured on similar lines to a BOT project but without the re-transfer of project assets at the end of the concession period.

The concession agreement will, therefore, be the key project document and as such is likely to be examined with considerable care by the project lenders. From the concession grantor’s point of view, BOT and similar projects have a number of advantages. The principal advantages are:

• They offer a form of off-balance sheet financing as the lending in relation to the project will be undertaken by the project company
• Because the concession grantor (usually a government or government agency) will not have to borrow in order to develop the project, this will have a favourable impact on any constraints on public borrowing and will potentially free up funds for other priority projects
• It enables the concession grantor to transfer risks for construction, finance and operation of the facility to the private sector and
• It is a way of attracting and utilising foreign investment and technology.

Under the concession agreements, the project company will usually own and operate the project for the duration of the concession. The revenue produced by the project will be used by the project company to repay the project loans, operate the concession and recover the investment of the sponsors plus a profit margin. Overall, the structure is similar to many other project financings in that the project loans will usually be provided direct to the project company (which is likely to be a subsidiary of the sponsors based in the host country) and the lenders will take security over (principally) the project company’s rights under the concession agreement together with any other available project assets.

The principal terms of a concession agreement for a typical BOT project are set out in Fig. 9.

Where the concession is in respect of a public transport facility, the concession may well provide for control of the level of charges, permitted adjustments and the duration of the period when charges can be levied. In return for any restrictions on charges, the concession grantor may agree to pay a subsidy or guarantee a minimum level of demand.

In the event of a default by the project company of any of the terms of the concession, or the occurrence of some other event which makes it unlikely that the project will be completed, the concession grantor will wish to have the ability to terminate the concession and/or take over the project company in order to complete the project itself. Of course, the project lenders will be concerned about any rights which the concession grantor has to terminate the concession agreement or to alter any of the terms of the concession agreement in a way that is likely to impact on their financing arrangements. They are also likely to want the ability to step in themselves and take over the project company’s rights under the concession agreement in certain circumstances (see section 6.6 for a further description of step in procedures and direct agreements).

An example of a BOT model for a telecommunications project is set out below.

Principal Terms of a Concession Agreement

Concession grantor’s obligations:• Granting to the project company an exclusive licence to build and operate the project for the stipulated concession period• Acquiring the project site and transferring it to the project company• Making and obtaining required compulsory purchase orders for land• Providing required consents and licences• Making an environmental assessment• Passing enabling legislation if required• Constructing connecting and ancillary services (including roads)• Granting, where applicable, tax concessions/holidays• (possibly) provision of raw materials and purchase of offtake• (Possibly) an agreement to compensate the project company against certain risks such as uninsurable force majeure risks and change in law/tax risks and• Granting to the project company the right to termination of the concession (with compensation) following a default by the concession grantor.Project company’s obligations:• To acquire the project site from the concession grantor• To finance, construct, operate and maintain the project to the contract specification (which may be variable by the concession grantor either with or without compensation)• To comply with certain standards of construction work (and to permit the concession grantor access to the site for progress checks and monitoring)• To complete the project by the specified date (and to provide guarantees or bonds as to performance)• To comply with all applicable legislation. If the concession grantor (being a state entity) introduces new legislation that increases the cost to the project company of carrying out the project, then the concession agreement may include compensation terms for the project company• Where appropriate, to enter into sales or other offtake contracts in respect of the project’s products• To permit the concession grantor to terminate the concession upon default by the project company• To train the concession grantor’s staff of the concession grantor prior to re-transfer • (Possibly) to transfer the project assets to the concession grantor at the expiration of the concession.