EDITORIAL A Landmark Deal For All Concerned

摘要

Banks should launch this week to final, general syndication the multibillion-dol-lar "prepayment" debt facility, under which leading independent crude traders Vital and Glencore will help finance Rosneft's planned $55 billion buyout of the TNK-BP joint venture — hoping to boost the $7.5 billion already garnered from a core underwriting group up to its mooted $10 billion ceiling (EIF Jan.2' 13). But regardless of whether the general syndication exercise gets there, the transaction is already a landmark deal exemplifying newly firmed relationships between what will be — post-TNK-BP-merger — the world's largest publicly listed oil producer, top-level traders seeking to secure significant volumes of Russia's increasingly crucial medium, sour Urals crude stream and international banks looking for the safest returns from lending to the energy sector at large.