Standard Chartered Bank, a leading multinational banking and financial services company, has completed three shipping finance deals worth over $1.6 billion, for clients in Asia and the Middle East.

These transactions highlight Standard Chartered’s strengths in advising and structuring optimal solutions for clients, its continued commitment to the shipping industry and in particular, continued commitment to clients and the shipping community in the Middle East, said a statement from the company.

In November last year, the bank leveraged its strong expertise in shipping finance and Islamic financing to structure the $350 million senior secured Murabaha facility for National Shipping Company of Saudi Arabia (Bahri), it said.

This facility will be used by Bahri to finance the construction and delivery of five Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCCs), which will be delivered in early 2018. As the exclusive carrier of Saudi Aramco’s crude oil sold on a delivered basis, Bahri will use these VLCCs to transport crude oil to the Americas, South Asia and Far East, it added.

This was a landmark shipping transaction in the Middle East for 2016, where Standard Chartered led as bookrunner, mandated lead arranger, investment agent and account bank with participation from three other banks.

Standard Chartered also closed a $572 million senior secured term loan facilities to subsidiaries of Reliance Group (Reliance) closed in October last year, will finance six units of Very Large Ethane Gas Carriers, said a statement.

These gas carriers transport ethane gas from the US to India and support Reliance Group’s $1.7 billion ‘Ethan Import Project’ to secure feed for its gas crackers, improve production cost position by diversifying feedstock and replacing oil linked feeds – propane and naphtha in existing crackers – and provide downstream capacity enhancement.

Standard Chartered, given its strong shipping expertise, played a significant role of a trusted advisor to Reliance Group as commercial facility coordinator on the structure of its first shipping finance deal. This award-winning transaction showcases an innovative ship financing structure which was finally oversubscribed by 12 international banks.

Most recently in December, Standard Chartered concluded a $684.5 million, up to 12-year non-recourse shipping finance facility for BW Gas JuJu LNG Limited (a joint venture partnership between BW Group and Marubeni), it stated.

Standard Chartered, as facility coordinator, led a syndicate of nine international banks in this transaction, which will refinance existing credit facilities for eight LNG (liquefied natural gas) tankers on long-term charters to Nigeria LNG. The Bank also acted as the mandated lead arranger, agent and security trustee, account bank and hedging bank in this transaction which was the largest deal for BW Group in 2016 and a key milestone for them.

Jamal Tartir, chief executive officer, Saudi Arabia, Standard Chartered, said: “We are truly privileged to lend our expertise and resources in support of our clients. These deals, which are by no means easy structures, gave us the opportunities to work across teams in order to propose the most optimal and innovative financing solutions for each of the clients.”

“We are very committed to continue supporting our clients in this region as they expand and grow their businesses globally,” Tartir concluded. – TradeArabia News Service