Sovcomflot Group and Sberbank CIB have signed a 14-year $340m credit facility agreement to finance the construction of three Arctic shuttle tankers for Gazprom’s Novy Port project. The move has been hailed as an important step in the rise of Russian ship finance.
Novy Port is one of the largest oil and gas condensate deposits on the Yamal peninsula in Russia. The vessels will serve as part of project infrastructure designed to enable year-round shipment of crude oil from an offshore loading terminal in the Gulf of Ob. The commercial production from the field will start in 2016.
The transaction involves Sberbank Europe, a subsidiary bank of PJSC Sberbank.
Commenting on the transaction, Nikolay Kolesnikov, chief financial 0fficer of Sovcomflot, said: “The signing of the credit facility agreement creates an important precedent for further development of shipping industry financing by Russian banks.”
