Enoc borrows $230m

15 June 2016

Chinese lender extends finance to UAE firm

Emirates National Oil Company (Enoc) has secured a $230m loan from the International Commercial Bank of China’s (ICBC’s) Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) branch.

The unsecured loan has a five-year tenor, and has competitive and flexible terms, according to Enoc.

The loan will fund Enoc’s strategic growth plans.

“Enoc has a long-term strategy in place, which is not greatly affected by the change in the economic climate of the region,” says Petri Pentti, chief financial officer at Enoc, in a press release. “We are confident of our growth plans and will continue to move ahead with our expansion plans across supply, trading, processing, retail, marketing, terminals, and exploration and production businesses.

“This deal is an indicator of Enoc’s global marketplace intentions,” he says.

MEED reported in June that the firm had appointed Deutsche Bank as global export credit agency (ECA) financing coordinator for a $1bn refinery expansion in the emirate.

Enoc raised a $1.5bn term debt syndicated facility from local, regional and international banks in June last year. The general corporate purpose syndicated debt in US dollars and Emirati dirhams had a nine-year term. It was a mixture of conventional and Islamic financing to support Enoc’s expansion strategy, and was fully underwritten by the local Emirates NBDCommercial Bank of DubaiDubai Islamic BankMashreq bankNoor Bank and Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank, as well as UK-based Standard Chartered. Another 14 local and regional lenders participated in the oversubscribed syndication.

Enoc’s current projects in Dubai include an expansion of the Jebel Ali refinery and an extension of an underground jet fuel pipeline linking its storage terminal in Jebel Ali with Al-Maktoum International airport.

For the refinery, Enoc received commercial bids in May. The brownfield scheme will add 20,000 barrels a day (b/d) to the refinery’s existing capacity of 120,000 b/d to help meet rising domestic fuel demand.

Several companies submitted commercial EPC bids for the project, including South Korea’s Samsung Engineering and France-based Technip.

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