Clifford Chance

Clifford Chance advises a consortium of banks on a US$500 million loan for LUKOIL

Clifford Chance banking & finance team has advised a consortium of banks on a 5-year unsecured US$500 million loan for Soyuzneftegaz Vostok Limited (Cyprus), a subsidiary of PJSC “LUKOIL". The consortium included ING Bank N.V. (The Netherlands), Intesa Sanpaolo Bank Luxembourg S.A. (Luxembourg), Mizuho Bank, Ltd. (Japan), Natixis (France), AO Raiffeisenbank (Russia), Raiffeisen Bank International AG (Austria), UniCredit S.p.A. (Italy) and VTB Bank (Deutschland) AG (Germany).

The funds will be used to finance the development of the Gissar group’s gas condensate fields in Uzbekistan.

The first fields - Djarkuduk - Yangi Kyzylcha - were commissioned in December 2011 and by 2012 the Gissar block reached its target production level of more than 1.1 billion cubic meters (bcm) of natural gas per year. In March 2016, the field support base started operations, and in 2017, as part of the full development stage the Djarkuduk complex gas treatment unit is expected to be completed. The unit will have the capacity to produce 4.4bcm of gas per year.

The Clifford Chance team was led by the Moscow-based banking & finance partner Victoria Bortkevicha and counsel Adam Fadian, with support by associates Anna Nikulina, Anna Booth and Dmitry Elkin.