Norton Rose Fulbright has advised Standard Chartered Bank, Singapore as documentation bank on behalf of a syndicate of lenders on the US$1,119,702,500 limited recourse project financing of the “Armada Olombendo” floating production, storage and offloading vessel (FPSO) for Bumi Armada Berhad.

The financing is in relation to the acquisition, conversion, refurbishment, installation and other ancillary work for FPSO “Armada Olombendo” under a time charter contract with Eni Angola S.p.A. Upon completion, the FPSO will be chartered to Eni Angola S.p.A. and operated at the Block 15/06 East Hub oil field, offshore Angola.  The FPSO is currently under conversion at Keppel Shipyard in Singapore.

The syndicate of lenders comprised Standard Chartered Bank, Societe Generale, Natixis, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, Intesa Sanpaolo S.p.A., The Korea Development Bank, KFW IPEX-Bank GmbH, National Bank of Abu Dhabi, PJSC, Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation Limited and Credit Industriel et Commercial.

The facility agreement was signed on 23 December 2015 with a tenor of up to 12 years. The facility comprises a term loan facility, a letter of credit facility and a bank guarantee facility.

The borrower is Armada Cabaca Ltd, a company incorporated in the Marshall Islands, owned by Bumi Armada Berhad, a Malaysia-listed company.

Ben Rose, a partner in the Singapore office of Norton Rose Fulbright commented:

“This was a highly complex transaction, requiring careful negotiation in order to balance the respective needs of Bumi Armada, the syndicate of 10 international lenders and Eni S.p.A, as operator of the FPSO. Challenging legal and regulatory issues were faced in each of the relevant legal jurisdictions, namely Angola, England & Wales, Singapore, Malaysia, the Marshall Islands and Italy. It was a landmark transaction for Bumi Armada, being their first FPSO project in Angola and their largest ever project financing.”

The team was led by Singapore partner Ben Rose, assisted by partner Robert Driver and associates Laura Hamilton, Jaye Bhogal and Bernice Chia.