Natixis has closed a US$225mn six-year finance facility with PetroFirst Infrastructure to help fund new energy infrastructure projects.

Natixis acted as the sole mandated lead arranger and bookrunner, underwriter, facility agent, account bank and hedging co-ordinator for the structured finance transaction.

PetroFirst Infrastructure is a US$1.25bn joint venture (JV) between energy focused private equity firm, First Reserve (80%) and UK-listed Petrofac Ltd (20%).

The JV will deploy capital both in purchasing a number of existing assets from Petrofac’s Integrated Energy Services (IES) division as well as in new projects that utilise Petrofac’s development capability.

The syndication launched on July 4 and closed in early August, having been oversubscribed. Natixis finalised the underwriting mandate for the facility, which will be used to finance two floating production facilities.

The new debt facilities have been provided to two special purpose companies, one holding a mobile offshore production unit “MOPU West Desaru”, offshore Labuan, Malaysia, chartered to Petrofac Group, and the other holding a floating production, storage and offloading facility, offshore Thailand, “FPF-003” chartered to Mubadala Group.

Proceeds from the financing will allow for the repayment of inter-company debt and shareholder loans.

Speaking to GTR, Daniel Klinger, head of aircraft, export and infrastructure finance for Asia Pacific at Natixis, says: “It is an excellent credential that shows us delivering on part of the bank’s strategy in Asia Pacific – to expand wholesale banking by leveraging our existing expertise in structured financing, among other areas.”

“One of these areas of expertise is the offshore infrastructure sector and this transaction shines a light on that, with an impressively fast underwriting and syndication,” adds Klinger.

In addition, Klinger tells GTR: “We have another similar transaction on the way, with a different set of clients. Watch this space!”