Azernews.Az

Azerbaijani state oil company SOCAR is preparing to issue bonds in the amount of $200 million, which will be spent on the financing of a shipyard plant construction, SOCAR Vice President Suleyman Gasimov told Trend news agency.

"The State Committee for Securities is going to register the prospectus of the bonds, which will be issued with maturity of 14 years," Gasimov said.

Gasimov said the bonds are to be purchased by the state oil fund of Azerbaijan, SOFAZ.
SOFAZ has confirmed the information, without disclosing terms of the transaction due to incompleteness of the operation.

An associated company has been established in the framework of the plant construction, in which SOCAR has a 65 percent stake, while Azerbaijan Investment Company has 25 percent and Singapore's Keppel Corp Ltd 10 percent. The plant is to be managed by Keppel. 30 percent of the construction work will be funded by equity, and 70 percent will be provided by bank loans.

A first ship of the new plant will be launched in 2013. The total space of the company amounts to 880,000 square meters, and the space of the closed production area -- 75,000 square meters. The berth length will amount to 1,300 meters.

Investments in the plant construction amount to around $450 million. The plant capacity will be 25,000 tons of metal constructions per year. It will enable production of 4 tankers with deadweight of 15,000 tons or 2 tankers with deadweight of 70,000 tons. The plant will also be able to produce 4 marine maintenance vessels and provide repair and towing of 80-100 various vessels.