BP pledges Angola, Azerbaijan oil as it builds US spill fund
Company has lost 38% of value since Gulf of Mexico disaster
London: BP Plc is pledging oil sales from Angola and Azerbaijan to raise $5 billion (Dh18.3 billion) of loans as it builds a cleanup fund for the worst US environmental disaster.
The larger of the two loans, for as much as $3 billion, is backed by oil sales from BP's interest in fields off Angola, lenders said. A second, $2 billion-loan is backed by revenue from crude drilled in BP's Azeri-Chirag-Deepwater Gunashli field, off the coast of Azerbaijan.
BP, Europe's second-biggest oil company, has lost 38 per cent of its value since its Gulf of Mexico oil well blew up on April 20, spilling about 4.9 million barrels of crude. To pay for the catastrophe, the company already got $12 billion of bank credit lines in the second quarter and is seeking $30 billion from asset sales around the world.
Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc and Societe Generale SA are arranging the Azerbaijan loan, while BNP Paribas SA and Standard Chartered Plc are coordinating the Angola facility.
Interest margin
Both loans will pay an interest margin of more than 1 percentage point above the benchmark lending rate, according to two people familiar with the matter who declined to be identified. The loans are amortising and have maturities of five years, the banks said in separate statements.
BP's London-based spokeswoman Sheila Williams wasn't immediately able to comment on the loans. Commitments on both loans are due September 13 and signing is scheduled to take place by the end of next month, the lenders said.
Meanwhile, BP's relief well and bottom-kill procedures, aimed at permanently plugging its Gulf of Mexico Macondo well, are suspended until the company completes an analysis of complications that might result in a new oil leak.
BP determined that 1,000 barrels of oil remain trapped in the well after cement was pumped in from the top earlier this month. Now US officials fear some of that could be released, or new leaks may form, when the company pumps in more mud and cement into the bottom of the well for the final plug.
