[en] Under the auspices of the NEA Nuclear Science Committee (NSC), the Working Party on Scientific Issues of the Fuel Cycle (WPFC) has been established to co-ordinate scientific activities regarding various existing and advanced nuclear fuel cycles, including advanced reactor systems, associated chemistry and flowsheets, development and performance of fuel and materials and accelerators and spallation targets. The WPFC has different expert groups to cover a wide range of scientific issues in the field of nuclear fuel cycle. The Task Force on Lead-Alloy-Cooled Advanced Nuclear Energy Systems (LACANES) was created in 2006 to study thermal-hydraulic characteristics of heavy liquid metal coolant loop. The objectives of the task force are to (1) validate thermal-hydraulic loop models for application to LACANES design analysis in participating organisations, by benchmarking with a set of well-characterised lead-alloy coolant loop test data, (2) establish guidelines for quantifying thermal-hydraulic modelling parameters related to friction and heat transfer by lead-alloy coolant and (3) identify specific issues, either in modelling and/or in loop testing, which need to be addressed via possible future work. Nine participants from seven different institutes participated in the first phase of the benchmark. This report provides details of the benchmark specifications, method and code characteristics and results of the preliminary study: pressure loss coefficient and Phase-I. A comparison and analysis of the results will be performed together with Phase-II