OIL raises $500 mn in overseas bonds to part repay bridge loan

New Delhi: State-owned Oil India Ltd has raised USD 500 million through overseas bonds to pay for the bridge loan it had taken to acquire stake in Russian oilfields.

Oil India International Pte Ltd (OIIPL), a wholly owned subsidiary of OIL, priced the 10-year notes at a coupon of 4 percent per annum payable half year, the company said in a stock exchange filing.

The notes will be listed on the Singapore Stock Exchange.

"The net proceeds will be used for partial repayment of bridge loans raised by OIIPL for financing the recent acquisition of stakes in Russian companies, namely LLC Taas Yuryakh and JSC Vankorneft," it said.

OIL along with its partners Indian Oil Corp (IOC) and Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL) had last year bought 29.9 percent stake in Taas-Yuryakh oilfield in East Siberia for USD 1.12 billion and another 23.9 percent in Vankor oilfield for USD 2.02 billion.

The consortium will get 6.56 million tons oil from Vankorneft while 1.5 million tons oil would be received from Taas-Yuryakh by 2019. Russian Oil major Rosneft operates Vankor and Tass-Yuryakh fields and are its wholly owned subsidiaries.

OIL had taken bridge loan to pay for its share of the acquisition of stake in Taas-Yuryakh Neftegazodobycha LLC, which holds and operates two licences for the Srednebotuobinskoye oil and gas condensate field, one of the largest in the East Siberia.

That stake was acquired from LLC RN-Razvedka I Dobycha (RN Upstream), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Rosneft, Russian state firm, officials said.

The licence for the central block is valid till 2041 and the northern block till 2032.

The consortium also bought another 23.9 percent in JSC Vankorneft, a subsidiary of Rosneft, which holds two licences for the Vankor oil fields in East Siberia valid till 2112.

Vankor is Russia's second-largest field by output and accounts for about 4 percent of Russian production. The field, largest discovered and commissioned in Russia in 25 years, currently produces around 422,000 barrels of oil per day. Vankor had recoverable resources of 361 million tonnes of oil and condensate and 138 billion cubic meters of gas as on January 1, 2016.

"The notes received a strong positive response from Asia, Europe and offshore USA accounts and was oversubscribed by more than four times," OIL said.

Barclays Bank PLC, Standard Chartered B ank, Citigroup Global Markets Ltd, DBS Bank Ltd, Mizuho Securities Asia Ltd and MUFG Securities Asia (Singapore) acted as joint lead managers of the issue.