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Pengerang Terminals (Two) Sdn Bhd (PT2SB), a joint venture between Petroliam Nasional Berhad (Petronas), Dialog Group Berhad (Dialog), The state of Johor (SSI) and Royal Vopak has announced that it has signed a $1.25 billion senior financing agreement with a banking syndicate of nine international banks.

The financial facilities will be used to finance the PT2SB industrial terminal in Pengerang, State of Johor, Malaysia. The construction of PT2SB started in early 2015 and is scheduled for commissioning in various phases during the first half of 2019.

PT2SB is the second phase of the Pengerang Deepwater Terminal (PDT) project. The dedicated industrial terminal will predominantly serve the Petronas Refinery and Petrochemicals Integrated Development project (RAPID) as its main customer. PT2SB will have an initial storage capacity of 1.65 million cubic metres for crude, refined products, petrochemical products and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG). The marine infrastructure includes 12 berths. The draft of 24 meters can also accommodate very large crude carriers.

The project costs are estimated around $1.6 billion, of which approximately 20 percent will be funded with equity contributions by the shareholders and approximately 80 percent is provided in the form of project financing through the abovementioned banking syndicate.

The financing facilities will have a final maturity of 15 years with a repayment schedule which starts after commissioning. The financing is initially based on variable interest rates and PT2SB will enter into financial hedge instruments to materially reduce the potential interest exposure.

Jack de Kreij, Vice-Chairman of the Executive Board and CFO of Vopak, commented: "We are proud that we have been able to secure the financing for this flagship project and we are very pleased with the commitment demonstrated by nine relationship banks participating in the financing of this project. This capital efficient funding of the project also creates significant additional financial flexibility for our company."

The syndicate of banks consists of AmInvestment Bank, DBS, ING Bank, Maybank, MUFG, Natixis, OCBC, SMBC, and UOB, which all acted as mandated lead arrangers.

SMBC acted as financial advisor and Allen & Overy acted as international legal advisor with PNC as Malaysian counsel to PT2SB.

The syndicate of 9 banks were advised by Norton Rose Fulbright as International counsel and ASL as Malaysian counsel.

PITSB

Bunker Index reported earlier this year that phase one of the PDT project, Pengerang Independent Terminals Sdn Bhd (PITSB), intends to expand its storage capacity to meet increased demand for low-sulphur marine fuel as a result of the upcoming 0.5 percent global cap on sulphur content in 2020.

PITSB is to be expanded by 430,000 cubic metres (cbm). The expansion is expected to be commissioned progressively from Q1 2019.

Commenting on the expansion in August, Vopak said there was a "growing need for low sulphur diesel/gasoil as a result of the global low sulphur requirement for shipping (active by 2020) as set by the International Maritime Organisation (IMO)".