Romania’s natural gas company, with Rothschild Bank as its adviser, hired JP Morgan to lead the consortium of banks that will intermediate the sale of bonds on the foreign market under an MTN scheme aimed to finance the Black Sea gas project, Neptun Deep, local media reported.
The MTN scheme would reportedly have a size of EUR 1.5 billion, with a first EUR 500 million tranche issued in H2 this year. The company announced the EUR 500 million bond issue for H2 in January when unveiling the financial planning for 2024.
Neptun Deep is 50:50 owned by Romgaz and OMV Petrom and entails investments of around EUR 4 billion, also equally split between the two partners.
Romgaz plans RON 4.4 billion (EUR 880 million) in investments this year, of which RON 3.3 billion (EUR 660 million) for Neptun Deep.
OMV Petrom and partner Romgaz made a final investment decision (FID) in June 2023 to proceed with the EUR 4 billion investment and have since taken steps to award contracts to have Neptun Deep in operation during 2027.
During its development phase, Neptun Deep is expected to produce 100 bcm of natural gas, making Romania the largest gas producer in the EU, romania-insiser.com reported.