​A project finance loan of €410 Million Euro was signed today by ​Legion Finance Trade Limited Investors group and Financiera Maderera S.A.

A project finance loan of €410 Million Euro was signed today by ​Legion Finance Trade Limited Investors group and Financiera Maderera S.A. for wood RDI and clean manufacturing. The signing of the project loan was held in Riga. The loan was insured by a simplified insurance policy by the Latvian bank as nominee for securing a proposed insurance for a period of 15 years, the manufacturing is scheduled to start by the middle of December, 2018. The loan maturity will be implemented for a period of 15 years.

The project focuses on the abatement of GHG emissions, wastewater treatment and substituting renewable, biomass for heavy fossil fuels in heat and power generation units that are smaller than 250 MWth. All the factories involved in this project have in place an Environmental Management System (EMS) implemented and certified by ISO 14001 standards. Strong Safety Health and Environmental (SHE) norms apply on all industrial perimeters. The industrial sites are located outside of urban areas and are not expected to affect any area of special conservation value (e.g. Natura 2000).

The Promoter applies the EU Timber Regulation and requires that all wooden materials sourced have certified chain of custody systems. Wood is sourced only from forests that comply with sustainable forest management standards as defined in internationally accredited forest certification schemes, such as FSC and PEFC. The promoter’s own forests are all certified.

The RDI activities are all within the existing facilities and do not induce an adverse impact to the environment. The annual emissions in a typical year of operation are estimated at 179,900 tonnes of CO2 equivalent and the estimated emission savings gained with the project are estimated at 34,300 tonnes of CO2 equivalent per year. These emission savings are related to the Santiago de Compostela (ES), San Cibrao das Viñas (ES) and Nelas (PT) factories, with the baseline emissions including the new electricity produced by the plants and exported to the national grid and the heavy fuel oil consumption. The abatement of CO2 emissions is mainly achieved through increased energy efficiency and using renewable biomass instead of fossil fuels in energy generation.

For the annual accounting purposes of Legion Finance Trade Limited Carbon Footprint, the project emissions will be prorated according to the LFTL project lending amount signed in that year as a proportion of the project cost.

The Legion Finance Trade Limited Agent Representative Ryszard Aleksander Herdan who was present the meeting during the signing of the contract commented that “with the described environmental management systems in place, the project is considered acceptable by LFTL investors financing from an environmental point of view. Overall, the project is expected to generate significant environmental and social benefits as well as multiplier effects on the local economies“.