(LiveMint)
Essar Oil has picked Trafigura and BP to lend it $1 billion to be repaid with cargoes of refined products as the Indian refiner’s new owners seek to diversify the firm’s financing base, people with direct knowledge of the matter said. Russian oil major Rosneft, fund UCP and Swiss commodities trader Trafigura bought Essar Oil’s large refinery, 3,500 fuel stations and infrastructure for $12.9 billion last year.
Essar Oil has long relied entirely on funding from Indian banks while the new shareholders want to reduce exchange costs by adding alternative financing sources and directly use dollars to buy its oil instead. Late last year, the refiner began talks with traders to raise cash in exchange for refined products such as gasoline and gasoil delivered over three to four years. It would be the refiner’s first major multi-year prepayment. The sources said that Trafigura and BP were jointly working to structure and then syndicate the loan with banks in the next few weeks.
