Pertamina to issue global bonds

Amahl S. Azwar, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Business | Fri, March 01 2013, 8:45 PM

Indonesia’s state-controlled oil and gas firm PT Pertamina plans to sell global bonds this year to back its campaign to acquire oil and gas blocks overseas to boost the company’s production.
Pertamina president director Karen Agustiawan told The Jakarta Post on Friday that the corporation would once more issue dollar-denominated global bonds to international investors this year.
“We will use the proceeds from [the planned] bond issuance to finance the firm’s acquisition plans,” she said in Jakarta.
While claiming the firm had already selected banks for the sale arrangers for the offerings, Karen declined to mention the precise date of the bond launch to evade market speculation.
In addition, Karen refused to reveal the amount of the planned bonds the country’s second-largest oil producer aimed for this year due to similar reasons.
“If we reveal everything just now then market speculation is going to move rapidly. As we all know, when we [Pertamina] previously entered bond offerings, market interest was very high,” she said.
A benchmark-sized bond is typically at least $500 million.
In May last year, Pertamina raised $2.5 billion by issuing global bonds divided into two tranches with tenors of 10 and 30 years, which the Jakarta-based company used to finance its plan to acquire major oil and gas assets in Algeria.(dic)