The US port of Corpus Christi has raised $216.2m from the sale of senior lien revenue bonds to help fund its bid to export crude via VLCC.
The Texas-based port said the proceeds will be used for both the deepening and widening of the Corpus Christi ship channel as well as other capital projects.
Wells Fargo Securities acted as lead manager of a syndicate of underwriters including JP Morgan, Citigroup, and Frost Bank.
“We are pleased with the level of interest the institutional investment community demonstrated for both series of our bonds,” said Port of Corpus Christi chief executive Sean Strawbridge.
“This round of funding will help us further progress our ambitious yet achievable capital investment program designed to increase exports of US produced energy.”
Moody’s assigned an A1 rating to the port’s newly issued debt, while upgrading its existing debt from A1 to Aa3, while S&P assigned a rating of A+, while reaffirming the same rating for the existing debt.
The Port of Corpus Christi, which loads the majority of US crude oil for export, has at least three VLCC export docks in various planning stages for the coming years.
But the ability to fully load a VLCC is contingent on further dredging of the Corpus Christi ship channel. That may not be completed until 2021.
In the interim, VLCCs have been able to partially load. But exporters then have to rely on offshore lightering in order to use all of a VLCC's capacity.
