UK-based and Africa-focused oil and gas company Tullow Oil has completed the refinancing of $2.5 billion of reserves based lending (RBL) credit facilities. As a result, the company has no near-term debt maturities.
The $2.5 billion of credit facilities are split between a commercial bank facility of $2.4 billion and an IFC facility of $100 million, Tullow said on Wednesday.
The fully committed facilities are revolving with a three-year grace period and final maturity of November 2024.
The transaction, which was formally launched in early October following the resolution of the Ghana – Cote d’Ivoire border dispute , was materially over-subscribed and extends the maturity of the group’s existing RBL credit facilities.
Now that the border issue has been resolved, Tullow plans to resume drilling at the TEN field, located in the disputed area, around the end of the year. This will allow production from the TEN fields to start to increase towards the FPSO design capacity of 80,000 bopd.
Tullow has also decided to reduce the commitments of its revolving corporate credit facility to $600 million from $800 million, ahead of the scheduled amortization in January 2018.
Following the refinancing of the RBL credit facilities and the reduction of the revolving corporate credit facility, Tullow has total headroom including free cash of $0.9 billion with no material near-term debt maturities.
Les Wood , Chief Financial Officer, commented today: “The refinancing of our RBL credit facility was a key objective for 2017 and we are very pleased to have completed this process in line with stated guidance and ahead of our year-end target.”
Wood also added: “Following this refinancing, we have no material near-term debt maturities and will enter 2018 in a strong financial position.”