The loan will replace a similar facility, contracted in November 2011, which amounted to EUR930 million and was not used on the date of contracting the new loan, Petrom said.
The company wanted to benefit of better conditions on the financial markets and replaced the credit line before its expiration, in 2016. The new facility has a 5-year maturity and can be extended for 2 more consecutive years.
“We refinanced the credit line contracted in 2011 before its final maturity in order to benefit from the current favorable developments of financial markets. Extending the maturity of the financing program allows OMV Petrom to maintain a solid financial position in a challenging crude price environment,” said Andreas Matje, chief financial officer of Petrom.
BRD-Groupe Societe Generale (BRD.RO), Societe Generale and UniCredit Bank Austria AG acted as Coordinating Mandated Lead Arrangers of the loan, and the syndicate includes both Romanian and international banks.
“The final transaction was concluded for the amount of EUR1 billion, which OMV Petrom will use, when needed, to finance current operations,” Petrom said in a statement.
Petrom, a unit of Austria’s OMV, is the largest integrated oil and gas group in South-Eastern Europe, with an annual hydrocarbon output of 66 million barrels of oil equivalent in 2014. The company has a refining capacity of 4.5 million tons per year and operates an 860-megawatt gas-fired power plant and a 45-MW wind park in Romania. Its oil product retail operations in Romania and neighboring countries consist of a network of around 780 filling stations.