Qalaa Holdings has completed a $120 million funding round for its subsidiary, the Egyptian Refining Company (ERC), bringing the total capital investments of ERC to $1.5 billion and the total investment cost to $4.4 billion, Al Mal reported.

The final tranche was requested by ERC’s project finance lenders and is divided into $70 million for capital increase and $50 million for shareholders’ loan.

According to Qalaa Chairperson and Founder, Ahmed Heikal, the funding will cover ERC’s first finance debt installment and part of the second debt installment, which is 99.6% completed and is set to begin full commercial operations by Q3 of 2019.

“The majority of our large shareholders have stepped up their commitments and given us their full support which is a testament to the solid fundamentals of a project that has the potential to become economically and environmentally transformative for Egypt,” Heikal said.

The refinery’s production capacity is 4.7 million tons of refined products and high-quality oil derivatives, which include 2.3 million tons of European-standard diesel and 600,000 tons of mazut-based jet fuel.

The ERC has already started trial operations and supplied 160,000 tonnes of low sulfur European specs diesel, naphtha, and high-octane gasoline to the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC).