Bumi Armada Closes Financing for Nigerian FPSO Project

Bumi Armada successfully closed the US $190 million limited recourse loan facility with a group of 7 mandated lead arrangers, which originally committed more than US $260 million :

• Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC)
• Bance UBAE S.P.a
• Australian and New Zealand Banking Group Limited
• ABN AMRO Bank N.V.
• WestLB A.G.
• Malayan Banking Berhad
• Standard Chartered Bank

The funding commitments were scaled back to US $190 million split into a US $100 million ECA tranche fully guaranteed by SACE, the leading Italian provider of credit management, and a US $90 million commercial tranche, both with a tenor of 5 years. The transaction was the first ever FPSO (floating, production, storage and offloading vessel) financing done by SACE.

The loan will partly finance the construction of the FPSO Armada Perdana which will be owned and operated by Bumi Armada in the Oyo Field offshore Nigeria operated by Nigeria Agip Exploration Ltd (NAE), part of the ENI group. In 2005, Allied Energy Plc, the original indigenous holder of Oil Mining Lease 120 (OML 120), on which the Oyo Field is located, and its affiliate CAMAC International Nigeria Limited, entered into a joint venture agreement with NAE under which NAE was appointed as the Operating Contractor for OML 120.

The FPSO is being converted at Keppel Shipyard in Singapore and is expected to sail away at the end of August to meet first oil in the last quarter of the year. This is the second FPSO for Bumi Armada in Nigeria after Armada Perkasa started operations last year.

The facility was launched in the early part of the year in very difficult financial market conditions. However the strong banks support demonstrated the strength of the sponsor group and offtake contract.

Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation acted as structuring bank, documentation bank and SACE coordinator on behalf of the mandated lead arrangers.