SBM Offshore gets its hands on $250 million FPSO construction loan

Dutch FPSO operator SBM Offshore has secured a term loan facility that will be used for building a floating production, storage, and offloading (FPSO) vessel.

According to the company, the $250 million facility will be fully drawn over the next few days to finance the construction of an FPSO. While the technical specifics of the vessel have not been disclosed, the tenor of the bridge loan is 12 months with a six-month extension option.

The loan is expected to be repaid from the first drawdown of the construction financing of the FPSO Jaguar for which the Dutch player won a deal with ExxonMobil to undertake front-end engineering and design (FEED) work, once a final investment decision (FID) was taken.

The FPSO Jaguar will work on the Whiptail deepwater oil development project offshore Guyana and have a production capacity of 250,000 barrels of oil per day, coupled with an associated gas treatment capacity of 540 million cubic feet per day and a water injection capacity of 300,000 barrels per day.

The Dutch firm has also been working in Guyana’s neighboring country, Brazil, where its FPSO Sepetiba was chartered for an assignment on Petrobras’ Mero field. The Brazilian state-owned giant’s strategic plan for the 2024–2028 period spotlights oil and natural gas as drivers of growth that will enable the transition to cleaner sources of energy.