Gunvor closes new USD 675 mil. financing for Ust-Luga oil products terminal
Gunvor Group (“Gunvor” or the “Company”) announces the closing of a USD 675 Million Long-Term Secured Facility (the “Facility”) to finance the Company’s flagship investment, its Ust Luga Oil Products Terminal in the Russian Federation (the “Terminal”).
“We are very pleased with the outcome of the Facility, which is non-recourse to Gunvor, as it attracted considerable commitments from international and Russian banks amounting to more than USD 1.3 billion,” said Jacques Erni, Gunvor’s Chief Financial Officer.
While less than one percent of Gunvor’s financing has historically derived from Russian financial institutions, the Company sought to balance the considerable international interest in this Facility with Gunvor’s global strategy to encourage local financing of trading and assets.
Credit Suisse International acted as Coordinator and Mandated Lead Arranger (“MLA”); Gazprombank OJSC, Raiffeisen Bank International AG, ZAO Raiffeisenbank, Natixis, Bank of China (UK) Limited as MLA; ABN AMRO Bank N.V. as Lead Arranger and VTB Bank (Deutschland) AG as Arranger.
“This Facility represents an important step for Gunvor: it not only confirms the trust and strong support from the banking community in our project, but it also allows the Terminal to be optimally leveraged, freeing up capital for other investment opportunities,” said Gia Mai, Gunvor’s Corporate Finance Director.
The Terminal is considered to be the largest rail/ocean transshipment terminal in the world, with a projected capacity of more than 30 million metric tons per annum. Gunvor managed its construction, development and the successful commencement of its operations for the transshipment of fuel oil since 2011 and light products since May of this year.
Most recently, on August 28, the Terminal completed the first loading of a vessel from its new third jetty, which is capable of serving large tankers with a capacity of up to 300,000 deadweight tons.
When fully completed, the Terminal will have a total storage capacity of about 960,000 cubic metres. It will be able to simultaneously discharge four 72-railtank car trains and two 47-railtank car trains for fuel oil, and two 72-railtank car trains for light products, with more than one kilometer of berthing space available.
The Terminal significantly enhances Gunvor’s logistics capabilities involved in refined petroleum products transportation and exports from Russia, as well as providing a material stable earnings stream for the Group.
Rosneftbunker OJSC is the owner and operator of oil product terminal in the port of Ust-Luga. The terminal’s design capacity is 30 mln t per year (20 mln t of dark oil products and 10 mln t of light oil products). The tank farm’s capacity is 1 mln cubic meters. The three berths stretch for 1 km.