White & Case advises lenders on Casablanca water desalination plant financing

Global law firm White & Case LLP has advised the finance parties, including FIEM (Fondo para la Internacionalización de la Empresa) through ICO, Société Générale with coverage from Spanish Export Credit Agency Cesce via the Green Investment Policy, Attijariwafa Bank, Banque Centrale Populaire and Bank of Africa on the approximately €500 million long term project financing for the Casablanca seawater desalination plant in Morocco.

The transaction supports what will become the largest desalination facility in Africa and the world’s largest powered entirely by renewable energy. White & Case also advised a group of lenders on a €120 million equity bridge loan that is providing funding prior to financial close.

The financing supports the development, construction, operation and maintenance of the plant by a consortium composed of ACCIONA, Green of Africa, a joint venture between AKWA Group and O Capital Group, and Afriquia Gaz, a subsidiary of AKWA Group. The project is being implemented as a public-private partnership (PPP) with Office National de l’Électricité et de l’Eau Potable, Morocco’s national electricity and water utility.

Located in Sidi Rahal, approximately 40 kilometres south of Casablanca, the project will be developed in two phases. The initial phase is expected to produce 559,000 cubic meters of potable water per day, with a second phase adding an additional 279,500 cubic meters per day, resulting in a total daily capacity of more than 800,000 cubic meters. Once operational, the plant will supply more than 300 million cubic meters of water annually, serving an estimated 7.5 million people across the Casablanca metropolitan area and surrounding provinces.

The Casablanca desalination plant is a flagship project under Morocco’s 2020 – 2027 National Program for Drinking Water Supply and Irrigation, launched under the high patronage of His Majesty King Mohammed VI. It is the first in a national pipeline of desalination PPPs aimed at strengthening Morocco’s water security and climate resilience through sustainable, large scale infrastructure.

The White & Case team which advised on the transaction was led by partners Julien Bocobza (Paris & Tokyo) and Nicholas Macheras (Paris) and included partners Amaury de Feydeau, Jean-Luc Champy, Lucas De Ferrari (all Paris), Fernando Navarro and Ignacio Paz (both Madrid), counsel Ximena Vásquez-Maignan (Paris) and Alfonso García Freire (Madrid) and associates Raphaël Papon, Ianis Tamoud, Niels Ardeo-Winter, Jessy Laberty, Charles Linel, Eva Brunelli Brondex (all Paris), Omar Sinaceur (Abu Dhabi), Maxine Ma (Tokyo), Juan Sampedro (Madrid) and Martin Riederer (Hamburg).

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