Songa Offshore has secured a $1 billion loan to finance construction of two semi-submersible drilling rigs.
The offshore drilling contractor has announced that the documentation for the previously announced $ 1,014 million loan facilities for the financing of the first two Cat D drilling rigs, Songa Equinox and Songa Endurance, have been finalized and the loan agreements have been signed by all parties.
The new facilities are split into senior loans of $774 million and junior loans of $240 million and have an average amortization profile of 10.5 years. The junior loans include a pre-delivery tranche of USD 104 million. Drawdown of the pre-delivery tranche is expected to take place in early May 2014.
Upon delivery, one of the new category D rigs will be used on the Norne, Heidrun and Åsgård licences in Norway, the other will be part of Statoil’s strategic rig fleet and set up for year-round operations in the Barents Sea.
The development of the Cat D semi-submersible drilling rigs was initiated by Statoil . The Cat D drilling rig is a new generation drilling and well intervention vessel, purpose built for the needs for Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS) operations.