Norton Rose Fulbright has advised OCBC Bank (Malaysia) Berhad and a syndicate of lenders on the US$755 million limited recourse project financing of the “Armada Kraken” floating production storage and offloading vessel (FPSO) for Bumi Armada Berhad, which will be located at the Kraken oil field in the UK Sector of the North Sea.

The financing is in relation to the acquisition, conversion, refurbishment, installation and other ancillary work of “Armada Kraken” under the charter contract with EnQuest Heather Limited, EnQuest ENS Limited, First Oil and Gas Limited, Nautical Petroleum Limited, and Nautical Petroleum AG as field partners, led by EnQuest Heather Limited as field operator. The facility is intended to refinance an existing bridge loan signed on March 31, 2014 and comprises of both a term loan and a letter of credit facility.

The syndicate of lenders comprised Export-Import Bank of Malaysia Berhad, Maybank International Labuan Branch, National Bank of Abu Dhabi PJSC, Labuan Branch, Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation Limited, RHB Bank Bhd, Singapore Branch, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation and The Bank of Nova Scotia, Singapore Branch.

The facility agreement was signed on July 7, 2015 with a loan tenor of 8 years.

The borrower is Armada Kraken Pte. Ltd., a company incorporated in Singapore that is wholly-owned by Bumi Armada Berhad, a Malaysia-listed company.

This was a landmark transaction for Bumi Armada, achieving many firsts, including their first FPSO project in North Sea, their first heavy oil FPSO and their first project financing of this size.

The team was led by Singapore partner Ben Rose, assisted by partner Robert Driver and legal executive Bernice Chia.