Page 10 - MEOG Week 41
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MEOG FinanCe & inVestment MEOG
Moody’s upgrades APICORP, outlook turns positive
GULF
MOODY’S, a ratings agency, upgraded Arab Petroleum Investments Corporation’s (API- CORP) long-term issuer and senior unsecured rating to Aa2 and changed the outlook to stable from positive.
The key drivers for the upgrade include the steady improvement that the corporation, the multilateral development bank owned by the member states of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries, has made in its liquidity and funding profile by diversifying its funding sources.
Over the past four years APICORP has diversified its funding options, with offerings in multiple products, currencies and jurisdictions, reaching out to a well-diversified investor base in international capital markets.
It has established and tapped two interna- tional medium-term notes programs issued
multiple floating rate notes in addition to con- tinuing to access medium-term funding through bilateral and syndicated loans.
This has allowed APICORP to significantly reduce its reliance on short-term wholesale deposits to less than 15% of total liabilities in 2018 from nearly 45% in 2015, said Moody’s, adding that increased medium-term issuance has enabled the corporation to significantly extend the maturity profile of its funding and eliminate short-term asset-liability mismatches.
Moreover, APICORP’s strong capital ade- quacy is supported by an improving trend in development-related asset performance.
This reflects formation of no new non-per- forming loans during the past three years and the settlement of legacy non-performing loans with high recovery rates during 2018, according to the ratings agency.
PerFormanCe
Turkey unlikely to face supply shortages this winter
tUrkey
TURKEY, with more than three different gas supply sources and access to at least one LNG terminal, is in a good position to cover gas demand for heating over the coming winter, according to a report entitled “Chilly or Snug?” by the ICIS, the world’s largest petrochemical market information provider.
The report assesses the likely impact of the expiration of the long-term gas transit contract between Russia’s Gazprom and Ukraine’s Naf- togaz at the end of this year on consumers in Europe.
The study concluded that Turkey, with diverse supplies of gas and access to LNG ter- minals, can be placed in its ‘safe’ category, sim- ilarly to the UK, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, France and Poland, Turkey’s state news service Anadolu Agency reported.
Turkey’s gas storage for the winter was rated at 86% of capacity, earning it a top score for
storage provision as well as supplier diversity and LNG terminal access.
Turkey has four pipeline entry points and LNG re-gasification facilities.
Turkey consumes around 50bn cubic metres (bcm) of natural gas per year.
The country imports gas via pipelines from Russia, Azerbaijan and Iran. Last year, the coun- try imported 23.6 bcm of gas from Russia, 7.9 bcm from Iran and 7.5 from Azerbaijan. The rest, amounting to 22.5%, was received in the form of LNG.
Turkey’s LNG imports reached a record high of 7.14 bcm in the first half of 2019, according to Turkey’s Energy Market Regulatory Authority’s (EPDK).
The share of LNG in natural gas imports sur- passed 30% for the first time in the January-June period, when there were 23.29 bcm of natural gas imports.
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w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 41 15•October•2019
