EX-IM BANK FINANCES U.S. GAS TURBINE GENERATOR SALE TO TURKEY
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank) has approved a $60 million loan guarantee to support the export by GE Packaged Power Inc., Houston, Tex., and other U.S. suppliers of three gas turbines to build a 154-megawatt combined cycle power plant in Kayseri, Turkey.
In Ex-Im Bank's first co-financing with Denmark's export credit agency EKF, EKF will reinsure $16.3 million of the financing to cover the export by Aalborg Engineering A/S of Denmark of heat recovery steam generators for the plant. The buyer of the U.S. and Danish equipment is Zorlu Enerji Elektrik Uretimi Otoproduktor Grubu A.S. (Zorlu Enerji) in Bursa, Turkey.
Co-financing gives both the United States and Denmark leverage to win an export opportunity in the important Turkish market that might not have been available to companies of either country alone; and in the process it helps to create and sustain U.S. and Danish jobs, said Ex-Im Bank Chairman Philip Merrill.
Other U.S. suppliers participating in the transaction are Ewlec Products Corp., Scarsdale, N.Y., and Eaton Electrical of Greenwood, S.C., which will produce electrical switchgear at plants in South Carolina, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. Zorlu Enerji will provide power to the Kayseri industrial zone and other industrial zones throughout Turkey.
The guaranteed lender on the transaction is Fortis Capital Corp., Stamford, Conn. Zorlu Holding, a major Turkish conglomerate and owner of Zorlu Enerji, is the guarantor.
The Ex-Im Bank and EKF financing enabled U.S. and Danish companies to win the sale in the face of competition from other European companies backed by their export credit agencies.
Ex-Im Bank, the official U.S. export credit agency, is in its 70th year of helping finance the sale of U.S. exports, primarily to emerging markets throughout the world, by providing loan guarantees, export credit insurance, and direct loans. In fiscal year 2003, Ex-Im Bank authorized financing to support $14.3 billion of U.S. exports. For more information, visit www.exim.gov. For more information about EKF please visit www.ekf.dk.