Romanian oil and gas company OMV Petrom has taken a EUR 930 million syndicated loan from 14 local and international lenders, to finance earlier loans that were due in 2012, it has announced. BNP Paribas, BRD – Groupe Societe Generale, Raiffeisen Bank International and UniCredit  arranged the loan.

The credit will cover general corporate purposes including financing the current investments program. As of November 23, 2011, the unused committed facilities, which are available to the Petrom Group, amount to about EUR 1 billion, the company has said.

“By extending the financing maturity we maintain our strong financial position in a highly volatile environment. We are the largest investor in the Romanian energy sector with annual investments of more than EUR 1 bn per year for the last six years; our investments weighed a considerable 3-4% of the total investments in Romania in 2010. Contracting this credit facility despite the challenging market environment confirms the banks’ confidence in our financial capabilities,” said Daniel Turnheim, Petrom's CFO. More details about the loan here.

OMV Petrom has recently reported its highest quarterly profit ever: EUR 275 million in the third quarter of this year. Its turnover during the quarter went up by 24 percent year-on-year, to EUR 1.4 billion. OMV Petrom made a loss during the third quarter last year. The company’s nine-month profit was of EUR 687 million, while its turnover grew to EUR 3.8 billion – an advance of 23 percent.

OMV Petrom Marketing operates 546 filling stations, out of which 389 are Petrom and 157 OMV. The Group also owns an international network of about 250 filling stations, in the Republic of Moldova, Bulgaria and Serbia. Petrom is building a 860 MW gas-fired power plant at Brazi.

Corina Saceanu, corina@romania-insider.com