Gunvor Group secures $200m financing to develop upgrade facilities

Swiss-based commodity trading company Gunvor Group’s subsidiary Gunvor Petroleum Rotterdam has secured a project financing of $200m for the development and infrastructural upgrade of its facilities.

Gunvor’s existing refining operations are complemented by the modernised Rotterdam refinery, in particular through integration with its existing refinery network in Europe.

The network includes refineries in Antwerp, Belgium, and Ingolstadt, Germany.

The financing was secured from a group of European lenders and oversubscribed by almost 40%.

GPR refinery manager Erwin Goosen said: “We are pleased that this financing is secured as this will enable us to execute the improvement plans we have developed for the coming years to become even more of a valued asset to the Gunvor organisation.”

Coöperatieve Rabobank was mandated as facility co-ordinator, and ING Bank acted as agent, security agent and account bank for the financing.

The mandated lead arrangers and original lenders to the facility are ABN Amro Bank, ING Bank, a branch of ING-Diba, Coöperatieve Rabobank, Raiffeisen Bank International, and Societe Generale Corporate and Investment Banking.

In February this year, Gunvor completed its acquisition of the Kuwait Petroleum Europoort refinery in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, from Kuwait Petroleum International.

Following the acquisition, the refinery continued to operate in line with Gunvor’s integration and optimisation strategies.

At present, the company is responsible for more than 1,000 refining jobs in Europe and almost 300,000b/d of installed refining capacity.