Some respite from the oil market rout for Tullow Oil today, after it secured a $450 million (£305.2 million) lending boost.
The Africa-focused oil producer said the additional cash came from existing lenders, whose contributions have swollen the company’s available debt to $3.7 billion.
Tullow, which reported its first loss in 15 years last year, and this month lost its place in the blue-chip FTSE 100 index, also said its corporate debt facility has grown to $1 billion.
The firm said the move would prevent a covenant breach during “a period of oil-price volatility and investment in production and development assets in West Africa”.
Oil prices have sunk from a peak of $115 a barrel last June and are now sitting at around $54.
Finance boss Ian Springett said the move reflected the “resilience of our debt capital structure and the quality of our portfolio to generate significant liquidity, even at low oil prices”.
Shares in Tullow rose 8.1p to 317.7p.
After touching a fresh all-time high of 6982.80 yesterday, the FTSE 100 was flat. It inched up 2.32 points to 6964.64, still within record territory.
British Gas-owner Centrica couldn’t keep step with the index after Moody’s downgraded the firm’s credit rating from A3 to Baa1.
The ratings agency said: “Lower energy prices and generally poorer trading conditions have hurt the company’s profitability and weakened its financial profile.”
Its shares were among the top fallers on the benchmark index, dropping 2.3p to 254.4p.
It was a better end to the week for Mike Ashley at Sports Direct: he has been called before MPs over the retailer’s use of zero-hour contracts and more than 200 redundancies at a Scottish warehouse.
Lawyers for the sportswear chain, shares in which rose 9.5p to 658.50p today, said Ashley was unable to appear because of “long-standing commitments” in letters which were published on the parliamentary website — something his lawyers later claimed was a breach of his human rights.
On AIM, Karelian Diamond Resources surged on the back of news of a potential new diamond source in the Kuhmo region of Finland.
The find is the first of its kind to be unearthed in the country for 10 years. Its shares were up 0.475p or 50% to 1.425p.