SBM Offshore closes $1.6bn project financing for FPSO Sepetiba
Dutch FPSO specialist SBM Offshore has completed the project financing of the floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) unit Sepetiba for a total of $1.6bn, the largest project financing in the company’s history.
The financing was secured by a consortium of 13 international banks with insurance cover from export credit agencies (ECA) Nippon Export and Investment Insurance of Japan and Italy’s SACE. A letter of intent was also received from China Export & Credit Insurance Corporation (Sinosure) which intends to join this transaction by the end of the year and will replace a portion of the commercial banks’ commitments.
The facility is composed of four separate tranches with a 4.3% weighted average cost of debt, a fourteen-year post-completion maturity for the ECA-covered tranches and a fifteen-year post-completion maturity on the uncovered tranches.
FPSO Sepetiba is owned and operated by a special purpose company owned by affiliated companies of SBM Offshore 64.5% and its partners 35.5%. The vessel will be deployed at the Mero field in the Santos Basin offshore Brazil, 180 km offshore Rio de Janeiro. The Libra block, where the Mero field is located, is under a production sharing agreement to a consortium comprised of Petrobras, as the operator, with 40%, Shell and TotalEnergies 20%, CNODC 10% and CNOOC with 10% interest.
