Nigerian businessman Kola Karim's Shoreline Power lands $200m Afreximbank facility

Afreximbank has approved a $200 million facility for Shoreline Power Company, part of the Nigerian group chaired by Kola Karim, to fund work on one of Algeria's largest upstream oil contracts.

The dual-tranche global revolving facility, approved in June and announced from Cairo on Monday, was extended to Shoreline and its co-borrowers, including Arkad SpA, an Italian engineering, procurement and construction contractor majority-owned by the Shoreline Group of Nigeria. Afreximbank acted as sole mandated lead arranger and lender.

The money supports Arkad's 44 percent contractual share of a $980 million EPC contract for Phase 2a of the Hassi Bir Rekaiz field development, awarded by Groupement Hassi Bir Rekaiz, a joint venture between Algeria's state oil company Sonatrach, Thailand's PTTEP and Spain's CEPSA.

How the facility is structured

The package splits into two parts. A $110 million one-off contract finance facility covers Arkad's issuance of performance and advance payment guarantees, along with working capital for the Hassi Bir Rekaiz contract.

The remaining $90 million is a revolving global facility supporting Shoreline and its affiliates in bidding for, constructing and developing pipeline and infrastructure projects in Nigeria and other permitted jurisdictions. That second tranche gives the group standing capacity to pursue further contracts rather than financing a single job.

The Hassi Bir Rekaiz work involves developing a new central processing facility, which is expected to lift Algeria's oil and gas production capacity.

A Nigerian group working through an Italian contractor

The structure is what makes the transaction unusual. A Nigerian-owned group is executing an Algerian field development through an Italian subsidiary, for a joint venture led by Algeria's state oil company, financed by an African multilateral lender.

Afreximbank has framed it in exactly those terms. Kanayo Awani, the bank's executive vice president for intra-African trade finance and export development, described the deal as an example of its EPC Initiative and Intra-African Trade Champions framework in action, enabling an African-owned engineering group to compete and deliver at the highest levels of global project execution.

Karim called the transaction a defining moment for the group.

Afreximbank has been directing capital into Algeria since the country became a full member in 2022, and the facility forms part of that programme.

Shoreline's footprint

Shoreline Group operates across energy, infrastructure, engineering, construction, telecommunications and agriculture, with interests spanning Nigeria and international markets. Its energy arm is best known in Nigeria for Shoreline Natural Resources, which holds a stake in Oil Mining Lease 30 acquired from Shell in a joint venture with Heritage Oil.

The Arkad acquisition took the group into the Italian engineering sector and gave it a platform to compete for large EPC contracts outside West Africa. Winning a 44 percent share of a near billion-dollar Algerian contract represents the clearest return on that strategy to date.

Karim, an alumnus of the World Economic Forum's Young Global Leaders programme, has built his profile around the argument that African companies should be executing major infrastructure work on the continent rather than ceding it to international contractors. The Hassi Bir Rekaiz financing places a Nigerian group inside a project shared with Spanish and Thai partners on North African soil, which is the practical version of that case.