By Alex C
CAMAC Petroleum Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the United States-based CAMAC Energy Inc., has entered into a credit facility with Zenith Bank plc for a five-year senior secured term loan providing initial borrowing capacity of up to $100 million.
Proceeds from the term loan facility will be used for further expansion and development of Oil Mining Leases (OMLs) 120 and 121 offshore Nigeria, including the Oyo Field.
US dollar borrowings under the term loan facility will bear interest at the rate of LIBOR plus 7.5 percent, subject to a floor of 9.5 percent. The security package for the term loan facility includes a legal charge over OMLs 120 and 121 and an assignment of proceeds from oil sales.
“This new credit facility provides CAMAC Energy flexible funding at a reasonable cost to continue development of the Oyo Field. The dramatic increases in production and cash flow we expect to achieve at Oyo will drive near-term growth and enable us to pursue our high-impact exploration programme,” Earl McNiel, senior vice president and chief financial officer, CAMAC Energy said.
In August, CAMAC Energy disclosed that the drilling of Oyo-8 well successfully encountered four new oil and gas reservoirs with total gross hydrocarbon thickness of 112 feet based on results from the logging-while-drilling data, reservoir pressure measurement, and reservoir fluid sampling.
The company had in June said the Oyo-8 development well located offshore OML 120, was spudded. CAMAC Energy is the operator and owns a 100 percent working interest in OML 120.
The development well lies within the Oyo field, which was one of the first deepwater oil discoveries made in Nigeria. The field is located approximately 75 kilometres offshore Nigeria in water depths of approximately 300 meters.
CAMAC Energy is an independent oil and gas exploration and production company focused on energy resources in Africa, with asset portfolio consisting of nine licences across four countries covering an area of 43,000 square kilometres, including existing production and other projects offshore Nigeria, as well as exploration licences with hydrocarbon potential offshore Ghana, onshore and offshore Kenya, and offshore Gambia.