Amendment of existing bank facility agreement

RNS Number : 8068B

Gulf Marine Services PLC

15 January 2018

 

Gulf Marine Services PLC

('Gulf Marine Services', 'GMS', 'the Company' or 'the Group')

Amendment of existing bank facility agreement

Gulf Marine Services (LSE: GMS), the leading provider of advanced self-propelled self-elevating support vessels (SESVs) serving the offshore oil, gas and renewable energy sectors, announces the following amendment to its existing bank facility agreement:

·        term extended by two years with final maturity in 2023; and

·        scheduled loan repayments will be reduced by two-thirds in both 2018 and 2019.

The financial covenants amendments and certain restrictions on capital expenditure and dividend payments previously announced on 9 August 2017 remain unchanged.  A cash sweep mechanism, effective when the leverage ratio exceeds 4 times EBITDA, has now been established from 2018, where 75% of surplus free cashflow (after adjustment for permitted payments and maintaining a minimum cash balance level) will be applied towards repayment of bank debt.

 Duncan Anderson, Chief Executive Officer of GMS, said:  

"We are pleased to announce this two-year extension to our bank facility and the significant reduction in our capital repayments over the next two years.  We appreciate the strong support our banking partners have shown for our business model.  This new agreement will provide the Group with the improved liquidity and the financial flexibility to allow us to benefit from the market recovery." 

- Ends -

This announcement contains inside information.

John Brown

Company Secretary (responsible for arranging the release of this announcement)

Gulf Marine Services PLC

15 January 2018

Enquiries

For further information please contact: 

Gulf Marine Services PLC Duncan Anderson John Brown Tel: [phone] Anne Toomey Tel: [phone]

Brunswick   Patrick Handley - UK Will Medvei - UK Tel: [phone] Jade Mamarbachi - UAE Tel: [phone]

Notes to Editors:

Gulf Marine Services PLC, a company listed on the London Stock Exchange, was founded in Abu Dhabi in 1977 and has become the leading provider of advanced self-propelled self-elevating support vessels (SESVs) in the world.  The fleet serves the oil, gas and renewable energy industries from its offices in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia and the United Kingdom.  The Group's assets are capable of serving clients' requirements across the globe, including the Middle East, South East Asia, West Africa and Europe.

The GMS core fleet of 13 SESVs is amongst the youngest in the industry, with an average age of seven years.  The vessels support GMS' clients in a broad range of offshore oil and gas platform refurbishment and maintenance activities, well intervention work and offshore wind turbine maintenance work (which are opex-led activities), as well as offshore oil and gas platform installation and decommissioning and offshore wind turbine installation (which are capex-led activities).

The SESVs are four-legged vessels and are self-propelled, which means they do not require tugs or similar support vessels for moves between locations in the field; this makes them significantly more cost-effective and time-efficient than conventional offshore support vessels without self-propulsion.  They have a large deck space, crane capacity and accommodation facilities that can be adapted to the requirements of the Group's clients.  In addition, an innovative well workover cantilever system was successfully commissioned on a Large Class SESV in 2017.  The cantilever allows GMS to increase the level and type of well intervention activities that can be carried out from these vessels to include operations that have traditionally been performed by more expensive non-propelled drilling rigs.

The fleet is categorised by size into Large Class vessels (operating in water depth of up to 80m, with crane capacity of up to 400 tonnes and accommodation for up to 300 people), Mid-Size Class vessels (operating in water depth up to 55m, with crane capacity of up to 150 tonnes and accommodation for up to 300 people) and Small Class vessels (operating in water depth of up to 45m, with crane capacity of up to 45 tonnes and accommodation for up to 300 people). 

Demand for GMS' vessels is predominantly driven by their premium and cost-effective capabilities, underpinned by the need to maintain ageing oil and gas infrastructure and the increasing use of enhanced oil recovery techniques to offset declining production profiles.

Gulf Marine Services PLC's Legal Entity Identifier is 213800IGS2QE89SAJF77

www.gmsuae.com

Disclaimer

The content of the Gulf Marine Services PLC website should not be considered to form a part of or be incorporated into this announcement.

Cautionary Statement

This announcement includes statements that are forward-looking in nature. All statements other than statements of historical fact are capable of interpretation as forward-looking statements. These statements may generally, but not always, be identified by the use of words such as 'will', 'should', 'could', 'estimate', 'goals', 'outlook', 'probably', 'project', 'risks', 'schedule', 'seek', 'target', 'expects', 'is expected to', 'aims', 'may', 'objective', 'is likely to', 'intends', 'believes', 'anticipates', 'plans', 'we see' or similar expressions. By their nature these forward-looking statements involve numerous assumptions, risks and uncertainties, both general and specific, as they relate to events and depend on circumstances that might occur in the future.

Accordingly, the actual results, operations, performance or achievements of the Company and its subsidiaries may be materially different from any future results, operations, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements, due to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors. Neither Gulf Marine Services PLC nor any of its subsidiaries undertake any obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statement as a result of new information, future events or other information. No part of this announcement constitutes, or shall be taken to constitute, an invitation or inducement to invest the Company or any other entity, and must not be relied upon in any way in connection with any investment decision.  All written and oral forward-looking statements attributable to the Company or to persons acting on the Company's behalf are expressly qualified in their entirety by the cautionary statements referred to above.  

 

END

 

 

MSCEZLFFVFFLBBV