Lukerg Renew, a 50:50 joint venture of Italian ERG Renew and Russian Lukoil (through its subsidiary Corni Eolian), recently arranged a €67 milion loan for the Gebeleisis wind park in Romania.

The Gebeleisis wind park, with a capacity of 70 MW, is located in the Galati area of Romania and was taken over last year from Danish Vestas for €109.2 million. The project became operational last year and contains 35 wind turbines of 2 MW each.

Raiffeissen Bank International and ING Bank are the mandated lead arrangers for the deal.

ERG Renew and Lukoil-Ecoenergo signed a joint venture agreement in 2011 for Lukerg Renew, based in Vienna. The joint venture would initially focus its operations on Bulgaria and Romania, followed by Ukraine and Russia, according to previous announcements.

Alongside Gebeleisis, Lukerg Renew also owns the 82MW Topolog wind farm in Romania, which will shortly see capacity expanded to 84MW. In Bulgaria, the two partners own the 14MW Hrabrovo wind farm and It also acquired from Vestas last year and the 40MW Cavarna wind farm.

Lukerg has also begun evaluating the Russian market, although a local content requirement is among hurdles to investments there. Elsewhere in eastern Europe, Erg Renew is also considering Polish wind investments outside of the framework of the joint venture.