Guyana Shore Base Inc. (GYSBI) has signed an agreement with NCB Merchant Bank (Trinidad and Tobago) Ltd for the disbursement of a syndicated term US$10M loan to fund the expansion of its operations.
NCB Merchant Bank (Trinidad and Tobago) Ltd is a subsidiary of the Jamaica-based NCB Capital Markets Group, which announced the signing.
“This bridging loan agreement is a precursor to a more significant multimillion-dollar deal involving NCBMBTTL and three other Guyana banks to provide capital for projects that will further build and enhance GYSBI’s capacity to support ExxonMobil’s offshore drilling campaign,” GYSBI General Manager Robert Albiez was quoted as saying in a statement issued by the Group.
The Group said in the statement that the loan facility will allow GYSBI to expand its capacity in the delivery of secure open and covered storage, berthing for supply vessels, operational personnel, and loading/unloading logistics support. It noted that GYSBI offers services ranging from waste management, chemical storage, warehousing, construction, supply chain management, expatriate management, and customs and logistics services, and currently has four berths, 30 acres of developed land at its main port and owns and manages 140 acres of industrial estate.
The Group said the Merchant Bank has been providing financing in Guyana since 2015 as it was part of a wider NCB syndicate out of Jamaica that extended a US$20M loan to the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo), while in 2020 it arranged financing for Nabi/KCL Oilfield Construction Services JV to aid in their construction of a corporate campus in Ogle, Guyana for a prominent energy company. It did not name the energy company, which is ExxonMobil.
According to the statement, the NCB Financial Group has assets of USD 12 billion, a capital base of around USD 1 billion and is publicly traded on the Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago Stock exchanges.
On the GYSBI loan, Marli Creese, Head of Corporate and Investment Bank-ing at NCB Merchant Bank (Trinidad and Tobago) Limited was quoted as saying that the bank was able “to provide financing that is flexible, forward thinking, and facilitative” of GYSBI’s business model. “By taking the time to understand Guyana Shore Base, we were able to create a custom-tailored financial solution,” Creese added.
The statement noted that GYSBI is a Guyanese majority-owned company that provides a multi-use facility offering support and logistical services to satisfy the highly specialised needs of Guyana’s oil and gas industry. It was formed in 2015 by Muneshwers Limited, Pacific Rim Con-structors, LED Offshore, and Total Tec Oilfield Services. The company was later awarded a five-year mandate to provide ExxonMobil with shore base services which has been subsequently extended to 2032.
GYSBI had previously approached the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) for financing to facilitate its expansion plans and went through a two-year approval process before the United States used its voting power on the IDB Board last October to deny the company a US$180 million loan.
Albiez had told this newspaper that the loan was denied by the US after current President Joe Biden came into office and effected sweeping changes as to the environmental mandate of his government. An executive decision was taken not to back new oil and gas development projects.
“IDB told us that they are not considering anything else, anything oil and gas-related in Guyana specifically. I don’t know what they’re doing worldwide, but their [IDB] lead told me that that was the deathblow for them developing any projects related to the oil and gas industry in Guyana…we reached out [to] IMF, World Bank [and] we were told the same thing that the US is using their leverage in their position as voting members on all of those boards to block any support.
“It was a very blunt instrument they used against us…I would like to be clear, I don’t feel that it was the IDB that let us down so much as the US interference and their direct mandate to not support the project,” he had said.
