Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC) is looking to secure a $2 billion; 58-month debt financing that will be used for export funding, bankers close to the deal reported.

Banks have formed several bidding alliances for the financing and the deadline is Jan. 18, the bankers added.

Last December, the company invited banks to pitch for either a pre-export syndicated loan, a bond or a mix of the two, a banker at a European lender said.

While the previous loan was secured on crude oil exports, the new deal will be secured on naptha exports, and pricing is expected to be below 300 basis points (bps) over LIBOR, which would be quite a step down from EGPC’s previous deal agreed only three months ago, a $900 million pre-export finance loan that carried a margin of 350 bps over LIBOR with a shorter 46-month maturity, the banker added.

The banker reported that the deal is attracting a lot of interest from international lenders looking to expand their loan portfolios, “With many banks, especially among the pre-export finance lenders, heavily over-exposed to Russia and specifically to Russian oil, the rarity value of EGPC makes quite a compelling case.”

It’s worth mentioning that this interest is strengthened by those international lenders active in the Middle East and North Africa that are looking to invest in something away from Dubai real estate.