North Sea operator Ithaca Energy has secured a new debt deal as it looks for potential oil and gas industry acquisitions.
The $610 million debt facility replaces a previously arranged $430m lending and a $350m credit facility set up to allow Ithaca to snap up Valiant earlier this year.
The deal, brokered by BNP Paribas, will also allow the company a new $100m-a-year corporate debt facility to fund new appraisal or development projects over the next five years.
It also removes restrictions on the previous debt deal which will allow it to increase spending once production from the £630m Greater Stella Area project begins next year.
“I am delighted to close a heavily over-subscribed debt facility process,” said Ithaca’s chief financial officer Graham Forbes.
“It is also particularly pleasing to put in place a corporate facility, which underlines the graduation of the company into that of a leading independent North Sea oil and gas operator.”
The Aberdeen-based independent, where Les Thomas took over as chief executive last week, saw its pre-tax profits double in the first half of the year to $71.4m.
Ithaca has also extended its sales deal with Shell for production from the Cook, Dons, Causeway and Broom fields, along with possible future oil from the Stella field.
Meanwhile, Trapoil has been forced to pull out of its planned farm-in to the Trent East Terrace. The firm had agreed in February to take a 33.33% stake in the licence, which includes the Trent East gas find, from Perenco.
But the deal was dependent on partner Hollywell, which had agreed to take on Perenco’s remaining stake in the field.
Now it has emerged that Holywell has not agreed to certain conditions in the deal, leading to Trapoil withdrawing from the bid and Perenco scrapping the farm-in.