No loan money used: Sonk

 The US$1.3 billion (K3.38b) the National Petroleum Company PNG (NPCP) used to repay the existing bridge facility to UBS and fund other purposes was not ‘borrowed’, managing director Wapu Sonk said.

He was responding to questions posed by The National whether NPCP would use its dividends from the PNG LNG ‘to settle’ the US$1.3 billion.

Earlier this month, NPCP announced a series of transactions totalling US$1.342 billion completed prior to the end of last year.

These transactions enabled the firm to receive the States interest of 149,390,244 Oil Search shares, equivalent to 9.81 per cent in Oil Search, repay the existing Bridge Facility to UBS and fund existing working capital requirements.

In order to facilitate these transactions, NPCP arranged new financing of about US$520 million (K1.3b) through ANZ, Bank South Pacific and Westpac.

Sonk said: “We (NPCP) didn’t borrow, we were just advancing our revenues so there’s no borrowing, there’s no repayment.

“Those banks just gave us the guarantee so we can access our funds.”