Project documents—issues for lenders

What are 'project documents'?

Projects are underpinned by a broad range of contractual relationships between all the parties involved in the project (eg the project company, equity investors, contractors, sub-contractors, any off-takers and suppliers). These documents are generally referred to as the 'project documents'.

Project documents are critically important to the project lenders because, in many cases, the success or failure of the project will depend on how adequately the project documents have allocated:

1. •

   the risks involved in the project (see Practice Note: Project risks and risk allocation), and

2. •

   the responsibilities involved in the project's development, construction and/or operation

One of the key features of a typical project finance transaction is that the project lenders look only, or primarily, to the revenues of the project for repayment of the loan. For that reason, the project lenders will focus heavily on how the project is going to be able to generate cash, for example from:

1. •

   sales of commodities or other