Case study: Offshore Cape Three Points (Sankofa)

Portland acted as ECA Advisor to UK Export Finance (UKEF) on the $1.35 billion limited-recourse debt financing for Vitol’s working interest in the Offshore Cape Three Points/Sankofa oil and gas project in Ghana, West Africa. The project comprises the development of an offshore gas field connected to a floating gas processing, LNG liquefaction, storage and offloading vessel located above the field with a capacity of 3.5 million tonnes per annum.

The upstream oil and gas project comprises oil and gas production wells, an FPSO and subsea gas pipeline to shore.

The financing has a hybrid structure combining Reserve Based Lending (RBL) and Project Finance features. Gas is sold to Ghana National Petroleum Corporation under a GSA, with payment security provided by the World Bank.  Debt facilities were provided by UKEF, IFC and a syndicate of commercial banks.

The Portland team of Geoff Knox, Frauke Bialokoz, Keith O’Donnell and Iain Hackston were responsible for:

• Assisting in transaction structuring and negotiation of the term sheet.
• Running the financial model on behalf the ECAs and conducting sensitivity analysis and breakeven analysis for the project, with particular reference to crude and gas benchmarks.
• Working with the lenders’ market, technical and insurance consultants.
• Assisting the UKEF on its credit approval processes.
• Assisting with negotiation of loan documentation.
• The transaction closed in Q4 2016.
• The transaction was voted 2016 Africa Oil & Gas Deal of the Year by Project Finance International.

To discuss this further, contact Geoff Knox at geoff.knox@portlandadvisers.com