State run oil firm, Indian Oil Corporation has signed a deal with a consortium of banks to raise debt worth Rs 14,900 crore to fund Rs 33,504 crore Paradip refinery project in Orissa.

The company said, in a filing before Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), "IOC has signed a rupee term loan agreement for Rs 14,900 crore with a consortium of 21 lenders led by SBI today."

It would be the first time in country's debt market that a single refinery project, having Nelson Complexity Index of 15, would fetch the largest syndicated rupee term loan from various financial institutions.

The loan arranging process for the refinery project, to be commissioned by March 2012, would be led by the State Bank of India which would act as IOC's sole advisor in the consortium of 19 public sector banks and other financial institutions such as LIC and HUDCO and SBI Capital Markets.

IOC board had, recently, decided to divide the refinery cum petrochemical complex into two segments and announced to commission the refinery project first and chemical unit after that.