Federative Republic of Brazil／Loan Insurance to Support New FPSO for Buzios Oil Field

Nippon Export and Investment Insurance (NEXI, Chairman and CEO, Atsuo Kuroda) has decided to provide loan insurance to support a long-term FPSOⁱ charter project in the Buzios oil field (Project). For the Project, MODEC, Inc. (MODEC), Mitsui & Co., Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, Ltd. and Marubeni Corporation have agreed to invest in Buzios5 MV32 B.V. (MV32), a special purpose company incorporated in the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Through MV32, the FPSO will go on charter to Petróleo Brasileiro S.A. (Petrobras), the Brazilian state owned oil company for 21 years under the charter agreement on leasing, operation and maintenance.

The FPSO will be built by MODEC and will be deployed in the Buzios oil field located about 180km off the coast of Rio de Janeiro, in the pre-salt layer at about 5,000m water depth. The FPSO is expected to have capacity to process up to 150 thousand bbl of crude oil and 212 mmscf of gas per day and store about 1,400 thousand bbl of crude oil.

Of the USD 1,350 million project financing to be procured by MV32, NEXI will provide loan insurance to support part of the loans (totaling about USD 540 million) to be extended by MUFG Bank, Ltd., Mizuho Bank, Ltd., Citibank, N.A. Tokyo Branch, BNP Paribas Tokyo Branch, ING Bank N.V. Tokyo Branch, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, Standard Chartered Bank Tokyo Branch, and Societe Generale Tokyo Branch. Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) will also provide funding for the project.

As a policy-based financial institution, NEXI will continue to actively support Japanese companies in the expansion of their business internationally.

Contact: Natural Resources Group I, Structured and Trade Finance Insurance Department
Tel: +81-(0)3-3512-7672

ⁱ FPSO: Floating Production, Storage and Offloading system is a floating vessel for the processing of crude oil produced at the subsea oil well, and for the storage and offloading of oil.