TXF Export Finance Perfect 10: Bigger, bolder and greener
What TXF's 2025's award-winning export financings say about the state of the market in 2025. It was a year when all of the promise of the ECA-backed market - in size, ambition and support for decarbonisation - came true on a grand scale.
Many of the promised trends in export finance came true in 2025. The main characteristics of 2025’s most prominent deals included greater scale in debt raising, ambitious green goals, structural creativity, and geographic breadth. To put it another way: ECAs helped more capital go to work in more ways, for more assets and in more markets.
TXF’s Export Finance Perfect 10 epitomised these trends. ECA-backed financings routinely ran into the billions, with several deals setting records for their respective agencies. Export credit agencies are increasingly willing to write or cover big tickets for truly transformational infrastructure.
Green assets — nuclear, wind, solar, geothermal, and fossil-free industrial processes — were a feature of nearly every major winning financing. They did not simply help decarbonise power generation but extended into heavy industry. ECAs are well positioned to help existing large industrials to start their transition journey.
ECAs broke new ground in the products they offered: untied corporate facilities, novel equity structures, and support for new revenue models.ECAs are not simply cheaper sources of capital than banks, but are showing a powerful understanding of major exporter and borrower needs.
Developed markets are increasingly important to the export finance market, but ECAs are still the partner of choice for tougher parts of the world. To do that deals increasingly blended ECA cover with participation from multiple development finance institutions, including in fragile or conflict-affected markets. With geopolitical gloom spreading, ECAs are very well placed to keep investment flowing.
It was almost impossible for TXF’s judges to recognise all of the innovative uses of export finance in 2025. And there are additional examples available. TXF’s sister title, Proximo, highlights some additional examples of noteworthy project financings with ECA support.
Power - Sizewell
A heavily ECA-backed $7.22 billion equivalent loan for the construction of the Sizewell C nuclear plant in the UK. Sponsored by Amber Infrastructure, Centrica, EDF Energy, La Caisse and the UK government, the deal marks Bpifrance’s largest guarantee ever, as well as the application of a world first revenue model for nuclear.
Renewables - Calik Enerji
Calik Enerji secured a €112 million project financing package for the 73MW Zatriq wind farm in Kosovo, in the municipality of Orahovac. The transaction is Serv’s maiden wind financing in Kosovo and has provided a financial blueprint for future such deals.
Commodity Trader - Metinvest
Metinvest signed a €23.5 million Finnvera-backed loan to fund the purchase of equipment for a project to thicken enrichment waste at an iron ore plant in Ukraine. The deal marks Metinvest Group’s first ECA-covered loan since the onset of the war.
Middle East - Al-Sadawi Solar
A Masdar-led team signed an approximately $1.1 billion project financing for the 2GW Al Sadawi solar power plant in Saudi Arabia, one of the world’s largest ECA-backed solar financings for a single project. A landmark deal for Saudi renewables progress with significant Korean EPC/technology involvement.
Transport - NextGen Class I & II
The financings - two separate $2.4 billion SACE-backed loans - will support the construction of two new cruise vessel for NCL NextGen Class I, a U.S.-based shipping company. The combined loans mark the largest ECA cruise debt package to date.
Latin America - Sucuriu Pulp Mill
The $2.2 billion Finnvera-covered financing backs the greenfield construction of the Sucuriu short-fibre pulp mill, located in Mato Grosso do Sul state, Brazil. The strategic project is of national importance and taps multisourced support with three DFIs, IFC, IDB Invest and IDB. It has a design capacity of approximately 3.5 million tonnes per year of short-fibre pulp and is targeting commercial operation in late 2027.
Europe - SSAB
SSAB raised a €2.7 billion ECA and DFI-supported green financing for a project to build a fossil-free mini-mill in Lulea, Sweden. The four green loan facilities are designed with long-term maturities that support the full project lifecycle. The blended loan has backing from Euler Hermes, SACE and NIB.
Asia-Pacific - Supreme Energy Muara Laboh
A $366.7 million multisourced geothermal expansion financing in Indonesia. Sponsored by Supreme Energy, Inpex, and Sumitomo Corporation, the loan has backing from JBIC, NEXI and the ADB. The project also has funding support from the Asia Zero Emission Community (AZEC) scheme amounting to $370 million.
Water - Ministry of Finance Angola
Angola’s Ministry of Finance raised a $246 million Bpifrance-backed loan for ProAgua water infra project – a transformative water infrastructure initiative designed to expand and modernise water access across Luanda and Icolo e Bengo.
Rail - Ministry of Treasury and Finance Turkey
A landmark €1.548 billion ECA-backed financing for the Dörtyol-Hassa tunnel railway project in the province of Hatay, Turkey. A joint venture between Dogus Insaat and Eze Insaat, the financing will support the construction of a tunnel as well as 23 kilometres of railway through the Amanos Mountains. ICIEC and EKN provided support.
Africa - Sonangol Finance
Sonangol Finance closed a €440 million SACE-backed facility to fund its equity share in the NeGaCo gas project in Angola. The deal is the first time SACE have extended a buyer credit to finance the equity contribution of a single sponsor based on the total Italian content for the entire project, and marks a new financial template for future schemes.
Healthcare - Ronesans
Ronesans signed an €86 million Serv-covered loan to finance the delivery of a hospital project under a PPP structure in Turkey. The landmark scheme includes a capacity of 630 beds and will create around 2,500 permanent jobs.
Untied - Reliance Industries
Reliance Industries signed a $500 million equivalent untied loan backed by KSure — the first corporate untied deal by a Korean ECA. The financing supports general corporate purposes, represents an inaugural KSure programme for private firms, and enables flexibility for future Korean exports.
