Dana Petroleum has secured a new US$1.5 billion credit facility to help finance the future growth of the company.

The facility is made up of an initial committed US$1 billion together with a further US$0.5 billion that can be made available in the future for investment opportunities. This facility refinances Dana’s existing US$870 million facility.

The syndicate is led by BNP Paribas and Commonwealth Bank of Australia who are joined by eight additional banks made up of existing and new relationship banks. Given the success of the syndication process all banks were scaled back from their initial commitments.

Dana’s Chief Financial Officer David Crawford said: “I am delighted to close an over-subscribed refinancing process with such a high quality banking group, and to be delivering improved terms. This is a major vote of confidence in the company and our future growth plans.”

Dana’s acting Chief Executive Graham Scotton said: “This marks the end of a successful year for Dana. We welcomed the appraisal work on the Tolmount well in which we have a 50 per cent equity stake with E.on which showed much higher gas volumes than originally anticipated. We have also had a number of exploration successes in the North Sea through our Pharos and Liberator wells during 2013.

“We have also recently acquired operating licenses in Denmark and Germany. This will give us the ability to develop a new Central European hub.

“Our $1.6 billion Western Isles project, in partnership with Cieco, is also well underway with drilling on schedule and the FPSO build moving ahead in China. This project is developing two discovered oil fields in the Northern North Sea and will bring 40,000 boepd onstream.

“We are in a strong position to move the company forward and grow our production in the years ahead.”