BOTAS seeks loan for spot LNG purchases second month in a row

BOTAS seeks loan for spot LNG purchases second month in a row
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The state company for gas imports also took credit in July from Deutsche Bank

The state-owned Petroleum Pipeline Corporation (BOTAS) seeked a syndicated loan of 300 million US dollars to buy LNG, after it took nearly a billion dollars in credit from Deutsche Bank in July, BloombergHT reported

Bloomberg said the cost (all-in) of the loan would be Euribor+575-650 basis points and the maturity of the loan in 1 year and 1 day.

Responsible for 95 percent of Turkey’s natural gas imports, BOTAS last month made a deal for German Deutsche Bank for a 929 million dollars loan to diversify its spot LNG purchases from suppliers mainly in Europe and the Middle East.

The loan was guaranteed by Turkey’s Treasury and Finance Ministry.

Ahmet Akin, Deputy Chairman of the CHP, stated that the borrowing from abroad for the purchase of LNG from the spot market shows the financial distress of both Turkey and BOTAS. 

“BOTAS used to buy LNG from the spot market by buying foreign currency from the Central Bank, now it had to get treasury-guaranteed loans from abroad. This situation shows that both our country and BOTAS are in a major financial crisis,” he said. 

The Turkish Central Bank did not sell foreign currency to Botas in July, the first month it has not made such sales since September last year, Reuters reported

The pipeline operator needed a 6.8 billion US dollars payment from the Treasury last year to cover its shortfall and as losses have accelerated since Russia's invasion of Ukraine drove energy prices higher.