Infra Dig – energy from BNP Paribas’ Muldowney

The financing of energy – the primary motivation of many nations these days – is the focus for this latest episode of the IJGlobal podcast, Infra Dig. 

Mark Muldowney – managing director of BNP Paribas' low carbon transition group – joins IJGlobal editorial director Angus Leslie Melville for a chat about the role of lenders in achieving energy security.

This latest episode runs for a little more than 28 minutes and sees Mark tackle the financing of large-scale nuclear and small modular reactors, as well as giving insights into the broader energy scene.

This latest episode can be accessed on Spotify (embedded above) as well as through the Amazon service. It is also hosted across a slew of other platforms, open access on all of them.

Mark – who has worked at the French bank for almost 2 decades – sits in the low carbon transition group, focused on the institution’s approach to energy transition.

Conversation launches with the 3.2GW Sizewell C project – the UK’s most significant public investment in clean energy in recent decades.

This massive greenfield project involves £5 billion of debt financing from commercial lenders via a Bpifrance export credit facility, a £500 million working capital facility, and a £36 billion term loan from the National Wealth Fund.

Mark first tackles Europe’s evolving energy needs, drilling down into the role that nuclear will play on deals of the Sizewell scale as well as SMRs.

“If we look more broadly at nuclear across Europe, particularly from the financing side,” says Mark, “contrast the position even 3-4 years ago with the position today.

"In those days a lot of bankers and investors felt very comfortable saying that they didn’t do nuclear… many of them, indeed, even had policies explicitly preventing them from doing nuclear.

“That has now changed quite a lot and those parties that aren’t involved in nuclear are starting to feel maybe they’re missing out, and that other people have taken the advantage to be early movers in the sector where they really should be themselves.

“Now, what’s driven that? I think it’s 2 factors…”

But to find out what those factors are, and to hear a lot more besides – including an insight into the Industrial Strategy Report that BNP Paribas published in partnership with Oxford Economics – tune in to this latest episode…