ALBANIA
The Deal: Bankers Petroleum Albania’s $20m term loan facility RZB Group was the lender.
RZB Group arranged the largest loan ever provided by a commercial bank to a corporate borrower in Albania, which will encourage the attraction of foreign direct investment to the country. The financing will be used for capital investment purposes and will further develop the extraction of heavy crude oil from the Patos-Mariza oil field in southern Albania, one of the largest onshore heavy oil fields in Europe.
ANGOLA
The Deal: Sonagol Sinopec International’s $1.4bn term loan facility
Standard Chartered Bank and Calyon were joint financial advisers and mandated leader arrangers. Other arrangers were China Development Bank, The Export-Import Bank of China, China Construction Bank, BNP Paribas, ING, NatIxis, Agricultural Bank of China, Bayerische Landesbank, KBC, Bank of China and Société Générale.
The $1.4bn package to finance Sonangol Sinopec International’s share of development of the Block 18 offshore oil fields was the first project financing of an asset in Angola and was done without political risk insurance cover. The company is a joint venture between China’s Sinopec (55%) and Angola’s Sonangol (45%). Despite a challenging deal structure the transaction was heavily over-subscribed and achieved low pricing.
Sinopec’s role as a major shareholder attracted significant commitments from Chinese banks, making the transaction one of the largest Chinese investments into west Africa. That said, the mix of Chinese and international lenders threw up challenges, such as rights between creditors, that the arrangers had to negotiate deftly.
