CMS Cameron McKenna has landed a role opposite Linklaters on the $2.8bn (£1.4bn) expansion of an oil refinery in
Poland.
Camerons has taken the lead for longstanding Polish client Grupa LOTOS on the extension of its Gdansk-based refinery. The top 20 UK firm fielded a team out of its City headquarters and Warsaw office to advise the petroleum company, with London-based banking and infrastructure partner Alex Doughty at the helm. Poland banking partner Dominika Uberman-Smigielska and energy partner Andrzej Blach also took roles.
Meanwhile, Linklaters took the lead for a consortium of 17 banks that agreed to stump up $1.75bn (£889m) to finance the project at the end of June. Banking and infrastructure partner Clive Ransome led for the banks, which included BNP Paribas, Fortis, Societe Generale, the Royal Bank of Scotland and ING.
The financing comes in addition to a $400m (£203m) facility Grupa LOTOS signed with a consortium of four Polish banks at the end of 2007.
The refinery is currently the second largest in Poland. The expansion, which is slated for completion by the end of 2010, will increase the amount of oil that it produces by two-thirds to 10 million tonnes annually.
Doughty said: “This has been a hugely complex project involving multiple parties, at a time when the international economy has put additional pressures on deals of this size.”
Camerons has advised Grupa LOTOS for a number of years, including advising on its initial public offering on the
Warsaw stock exchange in 2005.
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