Seadrill Refinances 3 High Specification Ultra-deepwater Units - Quick Facts

(RTTNews) - Seadrill Ltd. (SDRL), an offshore drilling contractor, Thursday said it has received commitments from 17 banks for a $1.35 billion credit facility with a 5-year term and 10-year amortization profile to refinance the credit facilities secured by the West Pegasus, West Gemini, and West Orion.

Initially, the transaction was launched as a $900 million facility secured by two ultra-deepwater units. However, owing to strong interest from the firm's banking group, the facility was upsized to $1.35 billion, including an additional ultra-deepwater unit in the collateral package. The new loan would be priced at a margin of Libor plus 2% and was substantially oversubscribed, showing the strength of Seadrill's credit in the banking market. This refinancing would provide Seadrill with $350 million in additional cash.

By completing this transaction, the company would be left with one ultra-deepwater and four jack-up units to be refinanced in 2015 and one ultra-deepwater and four jack-up units in 2016, amounting to $1.2 billion to be refinanced.