·
FirstBank of Nigeria Limited
·
United Bank for Africa Plc
·
First City
Monument Bank Limited (FCMB)
·
Union Bank of Nigeria Plc
·
Ecobank Nigeria Plc
We gathered
that FCMB Capital Markets Limited,
the investment banking subsidiary of FCMB
Group Plc, facilitated the successful closure of the deal. It played the
role of Joint Structuring Bank, Joint Mandated Lead Arranger and Technical Bank
in the transaction. In its role as Joint Mandated Lead Arranger, it contributed
significantly in the arranging the Facility.
Accugas Limited
is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Seven
Energy International Limited, an independent Nigerian integrated oil and
gas exploration, development, production and gas distribution company. The
agreement signing ceremony of the facility was held yesterday in Lagos.
According to
Accugas Limited, the funds would be used to refinance its existing facilities
and to support additional medium-term capital requirements. This will enable the
company achieve its objective of satisfying the growing energy demands from
power plants and industrial users in Nigeria.
An Executive
Director of FCMB Capital Markets, Mr.
Tolu Osinibi, while speaking after the agreement signing ceremony,
expressed excitement on the successful closure of the deal and also commended
Seven Energy for its ongoing and significant contributions to the development
of Nigeria’s energy sector.
He said: “Aside from playing its part in ensuring the successful
completion of the transaction, FCMB Capital Markets will continue to take
seriously its commitments and responsibility as the Technical Bank. This role
remains important towards ensuring that Accugas continues to realise its
expansion plans, by adequately monitoring the various complex issues associated
with the projects, on behalf of the syndicate of lenders.”
In his
speech, the Chief Executive Officer of Seven Energy International Limited, Mr. Philip Ihenacho, thanked the team
for the laudable work done to bring the capital raising exercise to a close.
He added: “The project financing deal is a milestone in the history of
our company, especially as it demonstrates Banks’ confidence in the gas sector.
For Nigeria to be able to develop domestic gas infrastructure to solve the
problem of power sector in particular, we need to begin to mobilise capital to
projects like this. We now have almost 300km of gas pipelines. Our company has
a gas producing plant that is one of the largest in sub-sahara Africa with
focus on domestic supply of gas. We currently supply gas to some power
plants. The backing of the banks has made this possible and we are very happy
about this development.”
The Seven
Energy boss identified inability to move the product to end users as the main
challenges of gas exploration in the country.
In his own
words: “There is a lot of discovered gas in Nigeria.
The challenge is actually in terms of getting the gas to customers because
unlike oil, where you can truck it or move easily, gas, can only be transported
through pipelines or by liquefaction compressors.”
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