Japanese banks have led a syndicate into the project financing of an offshore oil vessel in Ghana.

The finance – 40% or US$380mn of the total project cost (US$950mn) – will be used for the construction and provision of a new floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel to be used at Ghana’s Tweneboa, Enyenra, Ntomme (TEN) oilfields.

The finance was arranged by Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC), which was joined on the transaction by the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC), Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ (BTMU), Mizuho, ING and ABN AMRO.

The borrower is MV25, a Dutch joint venture between Modec, Mitsui, Marubeni and MOL. The FPSO is scheduled for delivery by 2016 and will handle 80,000 barrels of oil a day.