Page 11 - LatAmOil Week 06 2021

LatAmOil BRAZIL LatAmOil

The company has “decided to close the process, offers for four of these six refineries – REFAP,
since the conditions of the presented proposals REMAN, SIX and LUBNOR.
fell short of Petrobras’ economic-financial eval- To date, it has not received binding bids for
uation,” it commented. “Thus, the company will RNEST and REGAP. ™
start a new competitive process for this refinery
in due time,” it added.
RLAM and REPAR are among the eight
refineries covered by Petrobras’ privatisation
campaign. The other six are the Alberto Pasqua-
lini Refinery (REFAP) in Rio Grande do Sul, the
Isaac Sabbá Refinery (REMAN) in Amazonas,
the Shale Industrialisation Unit (SIX) in Paraná,
the Lubrificantes e Derivados de Petróleo do
Nordeste (LUBNOR) base oils plant in Ceará,
the Abreu e Lima Refinery (RNEST) in Pernam-
buco and the Gabriel Passos Refinery (REGAP)
in Minas Gerais.
Petrobras has already received binding Mubadala Capital made the highest bid for RLAM (Photo: Petrobras)

ARGENTINA
YPF secures more support for exchange

of bonds due to mature in March levels

ARGENTINA’S national oil company (NOC) exchange,” he wrote in a note to clients earlier
YPF has reportedly secured approval for a pro- this week.
posed securities swap from creditors holding YPF surprised its creditors last month by
more than half the bonds that are due to mature revealing that it wanted to exchange $6.2bn
next month. worth of its bonds for securities with a later expi-
According to a report from Bloomberg, ration date. In an announcement, it said it was
members of the Ad Hoc Bondholder Group, ready to issue three new sets of bonds to replace
which owns some 45% of the $413mn in YPF seven outstanding issues of securities that are
bonds slated to mature on March 23, agreed to due to mature between 2021 and 2047.
accept the NOC’s proposal earlier this week. It The NOC has been eager to secure a deal
did so after the Argentinian operator revised its before February 12, the last day that auditors can
offer for the fourth time, saying it was willing to approve the necessary market operations on the
pay investors $408 in cash for every exchange of basis of existing financial data. If it cannot meet
$1,000 worth of bonds maturing in 2021. this deadline, it will have to put off the swap for a
In a statement, the group said that YPF’s few weeks, until it issues its next earnings report
new offer “represents an improvement.” It also in early March. ™
declared that the company’s plan “provides a
balanced solution for the 2021 notes.”
In accepting the offer, the Ad Hoc Bond-
holder Group is joining the Dechert DLA
Group, which owns 25% of all the bonds YPF
wants to swap. (The latter had already agreed to
the exchange last week, after the NOC revised its
offer for the third time, offering $283 in cash for
every $1,000 worth of bonds.)
As such, the company now has the endorse-
ment of a majority of the creditors in possession
of the March bond issue. It is therefore likely to
attract enough support to avoid defaulting on
these securities, according to Santiago Barros
Moss, an analyst for TPCG Valores, a financial
services provider in Buenos Aires. “We believe
that the participation of the Ad Hoc group will
encourage other holders to participate in the YPF hopes the swap will free up funds for Vaca Muerta projects (Photo: Ámbito)

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