Tullow Gets $2 Billion Loan, Finds More Oil in Ghana (Update1)

March 9 (Bloomberg) -- Tullow Oil Plc, the U.K. explorer with projects in Ghana and Uganda, raised $2 billion in loans to fund developments and refinance debt. It also made a further discovery in Ghana.

The debt is split between a Senior Facility of $1.785 billion, a Junior Facility of $100 million and $115 million from the International Finance Corp., the World Bank's private-sector lending arm, with a final maturity of December 2015, Tullow said in a statement today. The margin on the Senior and IFC facilities, depending on the level drawn, is up to 3.75 percent over the dollar London Interbank Offered Rate.

Separately, Tullow said it well “has discovered a significant highly-pressured light hydrocarbon accumulation” in the Deepwater Tano license offshore Ghana.

Tullow gained as much as 13 percent in London trading. The shares were 80.5 pence higher at 815.5 pence as of 8:06 a.m. local time.

The London-based company plans to invest about $3.1 billion in developing the Jubilee field off Ghana and start pumping oil there in 2010. Tullow is targeting about 4 billion barrels of oil and gas resources in the Gulf of Guinea off Ghana and Ivory Coast.

The Tweneboa-1 well was drilled to a depth of 3,593 meters (11,800 feet) and is currently being drilled deeper “to further assess the discovery and the up-dip limit of a potential deeper fan system,” the company said today.

The loans have been provided by BNP Paribas SA, Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc, Barclays Plc, Calyon, ING Bank NV, Lloyds TSB Bank Plc, Natixis SA, NIBC Bank NV, Societe Generale SA, Standard Bank Plc, Standard Chartered Plc, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. and Bank of Scotland Plc, Tullow said.

Kosmos Energy LLC, Ghana National Petroleum Corp. and Anadarko Petroleum Corp. also hold stakes in the Deepwater Tano license.

To contact the reporter on this story: Eduard Gismatullin in London at [email protected]