News Release
Tullow secures an additional US$450 million of capital under its existing credit facilities
20 March 2015 - Tullow Oil plc (Tullow) is pleased to announce the following update on its financing and banking arrangements. Tullow and its lending banks have:
· completed the six-monthly Reserve Based Lend (RBL) redetermination process; the quality of our asset portfolio supported a US$200 million increase in lenders commitments, increasing available debt capacity from US$3.5 billion to US$3.7 billion, despite lower oil prices;
· arranged an additional US$250 million of lenders commitments, secured through the corporate credit facility which has been increased from US$750 million to US$ 1 billion; and
· agreed an amendment to the financial covenant on the RBL and corporate facility to address the risk of any potential covenant breach during a period of oil price volatility and investment in production and development assets in West Africa.
As a result, the Group has around US$6.3 billion of currently committed debt facilities with no near term maturities.
Ian Springett, Chief Financial Officer, Tullow Oil plc, commented today:
"Today's announcement marks another important step in the comprehensive re-setting of our business and financing and demonstrates the resilience of our debt capital structure and the quality of our portfolio to generate significant liquidity, even at low oil prices. We have diversified our balance sheet, significantly reduced exploration capital expenditure, restructured the business to generate projected savings of US$500 million, suspended the dividend and are also benefiting from our ongoing hedging programme. The strong support we have received from our relationship banks ensures that Tullow is well funded and is an important endorsement of our financial strategy and assets."
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:
Tullow Oil plc (London) (+44 20 3249 9000) Chris Perry (Investor Relations) James Arnold (Investor Relations) George Cazenove (Media Relations) |
Citigate Dewe Rogerson (London) (+44 207 638 9571) Martin Jackson Grant Ringshaw |
Murray Consultants (Dublin) (+353 1 498 0300) Pat Walsh Joe Heron |
Notes to Editors
Tullow Oil plc
Tullow is a leading independent oil & gas, exploration and production group, quoted on the London, Irish and Ghanaian stock exchanges (symbol: TLW). The Group has interests in over 130 exploration and production licences across 22 countries which are managed as three regional business units: West & North Africa, South & East Africa and Europe, South America and Asia.
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