ABU DHABI, 22 July 2004 — Dolphin Energy Limited announced yesterday it has signed a $1.36 billion loan agreement with a consortium of 16 local, regional and international banks to partly fund its multi-billion dollar gas project. “The five-year deal with initial pricing of 45 basis points over LIBOR, is expected to be refinanced with the proceeds of permanent project financing well before the maturity of the bridge loan,” a statement said.
Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank is to serve as documentation bank, Barclays Capital as serve as co-documentation bank, National Bank of Abu Dhabi as facility agent and First Gulf Bank and HSBC to serve as security trustees, it added. Dolphin is building a multi-billion-dollar regional network to export gas via a submerged pipeline from Qatar, which has the world’s third-largest gas reserves, to Abu Dhabi, and then on to Dubai, Oman and eventually Pakistan. The project is expected to come on line in 2006.
In January, the first supplies of natural gas from Oman were safely received by pipeline at a control station in the United Arab Emirates, marking the first ever cross-border gas transmission between Gulf Arab states.
The Abu Dhabi-owned Offset Group has a 51 percent share in Dolphin, with France’s Total and Occidental Petroleum of the United States each holding a 24.5 percent stake.