Covington Recognized as Project Finance Team of the Year and for Deal of the Year at 2024 IFLR Middle East Awards

Covington Recognized as Project Finance Team of the Year and for Deal of the Year at 2024 IFLR Middle East Awards

October 22, 2024

DUBAI —Covington was recognized as Project Finance Team of the Year and for Project Finance Deal of the Year at the 2024 International Financial Law Review Middle East Awards, which honors law firms who have excelled in the most innovative and complex areas of capital markets, mergers and acquisitions, private equity, restructuring and more.

Selected as IFLR’s Project Finance Team of the Year, Covington’s Project Finance team closed just under a dozen transactions across the Middle East with a cumulative value of over $12 billion during the period between July 2023 and June 2024.

Clients come to Covington to solve complex, first-of-a-kind projects at the forefront of the energy transition, where new business and financing models need to be developed – and where regulatory underpinnings likely need to be adjusted or otherwise newly implemented.  

This has led Covington’s Project Finance team to counsel clients on some of the most ground-breaking and innovative projects in the Middle Eastern projects market.

Project Finance Deal of the Year: Project Wave, Abu Dhabi

Covington represented Orascom Construction and Metito on the successful financing of the $2.2 billion Project Wave in Abu Dhabi. The project involves the development of a large-scale seawater treatment and water transportation project, which comprises seawater intake and outfall facilities and a nanofiltration plant located near the Abu Dhabi coastal town of Mirfa together with an approximately 75km water transportation pipeline, a pumping station and in-field distribution systems to support reservoir pressure maintenance of the Bab and Bu Hasa onshore oil fields in Abu Dhabi.

This year, Project Wave was also named Water Deal of the Year (MENA) at the IJGlobal Awards and Sustainable Deal of the Year, Middle East and Africa at the PFI Awards.

The Covington team was led by Richard Keenan and included Derek Kirton, Marc Norman, Ramy Ramadan, Christoph Schulz, Jamie Tribe, Cameron Busch, Haykel Hajjaji, and Georgia Ling.