Basil El-Baz

Chairman & Chief Executive Officer
Carbon Holdings

Basil El-Baz is the Chairman and CEO of Carbon Holdings, a mid-to-downstream oil and gas development company, with over 20 years' experience in the petrochemical industry. He graduated from Harvard University where he studied economics and government with a focus on industrial economics.

Basil El-Baz has developed and financed two major industrial greenfield projects in Egypt; Egypt Basic Industries Corporation (EBIC) and Egypt Hydrocarbon Corporation (EHC). EBIC represents and still is the only project to receive a comprehensive loan guarantee from the Export-Import Bank of the United States. Furthermore, EBIC is one of a select number of projects in Egypt to be financed entirely by a consortium of international banks. The project had an approximate value of US$650 million. Carbon Holdings’ second project, EHC, with a transaction value of approximately US$550 million is widely considered as the first major industrial project to close in post-revolution Egypt. Construction of the second project commenced in September 2011 and concluded in December 2014. In December 2012, Carbon Holdings concluded its US$114 million acquisition of the Egyptian polypropylene producer, Oriental Petrochemicals Company (OPC), which had been shut down since 2011. After a technical and commercial resturcuting OPC re-commenced commercial operations in the fourth quarter of 2015.

Most importantly, Carbon Holdings is developing the circa US$10.8 billion Naphtha Cracker and Polyethylene Complex project named Tahrir Petrochemicals Corporation (TPC) that is currently in an advanced stage of financing. The project is being financed by the Export – Import Bank of the United States (US EXIM), the United Kingdom Export Finance ("UKEF"), Overseas Private Investment Corporation of the United States (OPIC), Euler Hermes of Germany and Export Development Canada (EDC).

Awards:
Basil El-Baz was ranked 1st by Institut Choiseul in their annual top 100 African business leaders in 2017, which is an annual study independently carried out by Paris-based Institut Choiseul that identifies and ranks the young African business economic leaders. The study by Choiseul intends to highlight those women and men who play a major role in the continent's economic development. In both 2015 and 2016 he was ranked 12th.

Basil El-Baz was awarded Africa Entrepreneur of the Year 2016. He is the first Egyptian entrepreneur to receive such an honor. The award was announced at the Africa-France Economic Forum at the 27th Africa-France Summit held in Bamako, Mali on 13 January 2017. The Business Africa Entrepreneur Awards, in connection with Business Africa, and in partnership with MEDEF (Mouvement Des Enterprise De France) and Institut Choiseul.

Appointments and Memberships:
Basil El-Baz sits on the Board of Trustees of the "Tahya Misr" (Long Live Egypt) Fund, established to address social issues such as HIV and homelessness. He also sits on the Boards of a wide variety of business organisations including The National Committee for Managing State Assets, the US-Egypt Business Council, the Italian-Egyptian Business Council, the Egypt-UAE Business Council and the Egypt-Korea Business Council.

He is also the Co-Chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt (Energy Committee), a member of the Federation of Egyptian Industries (Energy Committee) and the founder of Egypt Basic Industiral Corporation (EBIC).

To read more about Basil El-Baz, kindly visit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basil_El-Baz