Sovcomflot’s $316m project financing transaction received “The Project Financing Deal of the Year” award

Saint Petersburg, Russia, 5-3-2014 — /EuropaWire/ — Sovcomflot’s $316-mln project financing transaction is recognized by the international shipping magazine Marine Money as one of the best financial transactions in 2013 and receives “The Project Financing Deal of the Year” award.

The 10 year non-recourse project facility will finance two ice-class LNG carriers that will operate under long-term charters with Gazprom group. The pairing of Sovcomflot with Gazprom provided for one of the best structured and most competitive deals of the year, writes Marine Money. The transaction was very well received by the banking market with initial oversubscription of more than 2.5 times.

“On the back of Sovcomflot’s reputation and the cash flows from the Gazprom charters, the borrowers obtained highly favorable non-recourse financing with a long tenor and high gearing. The facility is a 10 year post-delivery term loan financing 80% of the contract price of the vessels, which fully covers payment of the delivery installments under the shipbuilding contracts. The repayment profile is 15 years to zero, in line with the committed period of the time charter contracts, resulting in a 33% balloon at the end of the 10 year tenor”.

Nikolai Kolesnikov, Sovcomflot EVP & Chief Financial Officer said, “This is the fourth year in a row that Sovcomflot financing transactions have received Marine Money’s “Deal of the Year” awards, each time for a different financial instrument. We are grateful to Marine Money for their high recognition of our latest innovative project financing deal that we put together with our banking partners ING, KfW IPEX-Bank and SMBC.”

The Velikiy Novgorod series of LNG carriers of Atlanticmax type and cargo capacity of 170,200 m3 are among the top-of-the-range vessels. The first ship has already started operations in February 2014, the second LNG carrier, Pskov, will be commissioned in the coming September. These ships are capable to carry gas in conditions of year-round long navigation from almost all available LNG terminals all across the world, including the Russia’s first LNG terminal in Prigorodnoye (Sakhalin-2 Project, Sakhalin Region) and the oncoming Vladivostok-LNG terminal.