In the 1970s, project financing began to enter the modern mode, and some large-scale natural resources development projects were undertaken, which promoted the soaring energy prices to a certain extent, and then led to an increase in people's demand for unconventional energy. In the early 1970s, BP raised $945 million through an engineering project to explore and develop 40 oil fields in the North Sea. Around this time, the Freeport Minerals project funded the mining of the Ertsberg copper mine in Indonesia and the ConzincRiotionto project in Australia funded the mining of the Bougainville copper mine in Papua New Guinea. Modern project financing measures have begun, and a large number of statistics show that the United States built several power stations in this way in the early 1980s. The soaring energy price trend in 1970s prompted the United States Congress to pass the Public Utilities Regulatory Policy Act (PURPA) as a way to promote alternative (non-fossil fuel) energy investment. The bill requires local public utility companies to purchase all products according to contracts. Equity investors have created a new type of independent companies-they own their own power plants and finance them in the form of non-recourse debts. These power plants are independent power producers.
The following figure shows a typical engineering system, which contains 65,438+05 components, which are vertically connected with each other, or form an IPF through some more contracts. Its distinctive feature is that a developer must sign four important contracts: (65,438+0) construction and equipment contracts, mostly general contracts signed with experienced contractors; (2) Long-term fuel supply contract; (3) Long-term power purchase contracts signed with reputable public utilities; (4) Operation and maintenance contracts. After these contracts and a large number of other contracts are signed, the project leader can inject funds on the basis of this project. Because these contracts are widely used, some project financing can also be used as contract funds.
IPP standard project financing system
Project financing is an attractive way, which can provide limited or unlimited creditor's rights for the assets and liabilities of the project organizer. Lenders may be satisfied with this clause, because IPP has long-term public bonds and contracts that meet the conditions of credit loans, plus the stable cash flow support of the other party, so it can be bound by conventional standards. In the 1980s, power companies obtained two-thirds of the total investment in project financing. For this reason, before 1990s, project financing has become synonymous with American power financing. But at the same time, there has also been differentiation. The predecessor of modern engineering project financing is that the public sector will use tax-free municipal bonds to finance highway construction, water treatment plants and other infrastructure projects. Municipalities and other entities usually rely on their good reputation and credit ability to obtain traditional bond deposits-as their own financing funds. For a long time, they have been using income bonds returned by special dividend cash flow (issued by American cities and state governments and guaranteed by income) as financing means.
In the early 1990s, American municipal authorities began to closely combine the financing of engineering projects with the investment of private enterprises in order to promote better management under specific objectives. And supporters can share risks more effectively, and these public and private enterprises can also get more available funds. In fact, this limits the government budget. In recent years, the cooperation mode between the public sector and private enterprises (abbreviated as PPP in English) has become more standardized. For example, Britain established the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) in 1992, which includes the financing and management of social infrastructure projects by private enterprises. By 1999, Britain has signed 250 PFI projects with a total value of1600 million US dollars. Based on the early success, the British government has identified more projects that can be included in PFI, including the construction of encyclopedia hospitals, schools and prisons. In recent years, many countries including Australia, Ireland, Italy and South Africa have established similar PFI. PPP mode is another example of mixed system. PPP model uses private funds and private companies to set up and operate engineering funds, such as roads, prisons and schools. Historically, these are funded by public funds and are for profit.
Through PPP mode, the government transfers the risks of construction and operation to private enterprises, and private enterprises can often raise and operate these funds more effectively. However, the government foresees market risks (for example, in the case of highway toll collection, there will be risks related to traffic income). The municipal departments of the government can cope with many major and long-term risks better than private enterprises (companies). With the application of PPP model in the future, the roles of public sector and private enterprises in the development and operation of public works funds will continue to be determined. Projects funded in non-traditional fields (such as industrial sectors outside the power industry) or emerging market projects will receive more support from IFI and other forms of insurance.
Investors are looking for new ways to solve the most important risks and control macroeconomic risks, in part because the protection measures provided by the municipal departments after their participation are weaker than the engineering contractors imagined in advance. Instead, these contractors use political risk insurance (PRI) to offset the losses caused by current currency devaluation, confiscation (land or property) and non-performance of contracts. As expected, the price of PRI is rising because demand is beginning to exceed actual supply. In addition, the termination cost of standard commercial activities and other types of commercial insurance is becoming more and more expensive. Especially after the tragedy of 1 1 in September 2002, the insurance amount of insurance companies against terrorism has greatly increased. Since then, the insurance company has requested to pay part of the insurance premium for the terrorist incident. Previously, this amount was included in the amount of ordinary property and accident insurance. This increase in cost makes it more difficult to implement many project financing and measures that have been implemented but need to be improved again. Another particularly thorny issue is the exchange rate risk of foreign currency exchange, which is even more problematic for developing countries and "retail" projects (that is, these projects involve individual users related to highway tolls, electricity and water supply). At present, these projects will be financed in local currency to solve the losses caused by currency depreciation, which is becoming more and more obvious. A relatively new measure is currency depreciation insurance. 200 1, Overseas Private Investment Company (OPIC) and Bank of America introduced a new form to prevent currency depreciation losses. For example, in a hydropower project in Brazil, AES Tiete used $300 million in financing funds. In these countries without investment grade, currency depreciation insurance has become the main source of investment funds.
In 2002, the capital of all engineering project financing markets in the world was about $654.38+03.5 billion, including loans and equity investments of engineering contracting companies, which was 38% lower than that of $265.438+07 billion in 2006. During 2003-2007, the financing of engineering projects is increasing, especially in the Gulf Cooperation Council and the Middle East, with the total investment increasing at an average annual rate of 23%. With the Middle East becoming the largest project financing market in the world, all acquisitions and investments from Dubai to the whole Middle East are carried out in the form of debt financing, which is an obvious trend. In the past few years, the interest in debt financing in UAE, especially in Dubai Emirates, has steadily and continuously increased. The increasingly active Middle East has become the largest project financing market in the world: during 2006-2007, the global project financing loan amount has reached US$ 275.5 billion, of which the project financing in the Middle East alone is as high as US$ 65.438+001300 million. The investment in infrastructure construction is not only in traditional energy-based projects, but in all fields. Market development loans and market capital allocation from the Gulf Cooperation Council have continued to grow rapidly, and this growth can also be seen in the loan market jointly organized by enterprises. Since 2003, the loan market organized by GCC joint ventures has been growing continuously. The joint organization loan of enterprises is famous in the equity market with a total amount of $654.38+090.5 billion. It has become the largest OPI in the world (39%), with Saudi Arabia having the largest share (47%).