Amaya Capital and Azura Power Holdings have reached financial close for the 450MW Azura-Edo Independent Power Project (IPP) in Edo State, Nigeria.

David Ladipo, Managing Director of Azura, said: “We are excited at the prospect of this landmark transaction opening the doors for additional much needed financing across the whole power sector to bring electricity to Nigeria."

The $876m transaction is the first of a new wave of project-financed greenfield IPPs currently being developed in Nigeria.

The financing of the Azura-Edo IPP involves $190m of equity and $686m of debt from a consortium of local and international financiers.

Azura is majority owned by Amaya Capital, the founder and lead sponsor of the project and American Capital Energy & Infrastructure.

Other equity investors in the Azura-Edo project include funds managed by African Infrastructure Investment Managers (AIIM), Aldwych Azura and the ARM-Harith Infrastructure Fund.

The completion of financing for Azura represents the second major infrastructure investment by Amaya Capital, the first being Seven Energy, the gas infrastructure company.

Through its investments in Seven Energy and Azura,Amaya Capital has been the lead sponsor and active investor in two companies responsible for the deployment of over $3bn of capital in the gas and power segments of the energy sector in Nigeria.

These early stage investments have contributed to the development of a commercially viable markets in gas and electricity in Nigeria, two fundamentally important market segments for Nigeria’s evolving energy sector, but where private sector investment had been hitherto limited.

The Azura-Edo IPP is the first Nigerian power project to benefit from the World Bank’s ‘Partial Risk Guarantee’ structure, specifically created to meet the developing needs of emerging markets world-wide, and political risk insurance for equity and commercial debt from the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA).

Significantly, the overall transaction will be underpinned by financial support provided by the Federal Government of Nigeria through a Put and Call Option Agreement complementing the Power Purchase Agreement between the Azura-Edo IPP and the Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading.

The Azura-Edo IPP comprises a 450MW open cycle gas turbine power station; a short transmission line connecting the power plant to a local substation and a short underground gas pipeline connecting the power plant to the country’s main gas-supply.

It represents the first phase of a 1,500MW power plant facility.

This first phase of the plant, which is targeted to come on stream in 2017, is forecast to create over 1,000 jobs during its construction and operation and to supply over 12 million people in Nigeria.

The Engineering, Procurement and Construction has been contracted to Siemens and Julius Berger Nigeria; the Gas Sales and Purchase Agreement with Seplat; and an Operations & Maintenance contract with PIC Marubeni.

Ladipo said: "Nigeria should be proud, particularly at this difficult time when the world is facing so much uncertainty, that it has been able attract over a billion dollars of financing to build a power and a gas facility from the world’s best-in-class financing institutions across 14 countries as well as local financing from Nigeria itself.”