一种新型的石油和天然气投资基金正在蓬勃发展

石油和天然气生产商正在使其资金来源多样化

能源资产证券化是一种新型的融资方式，正在迅速流行起来

律师事务所Sidley Austin LLP的能源金融合伙人Daniel Allison说，石油和天然气证券化产品可能对投资者和生产商都有利

据油价网12月24日报道，随着银行从资助石油和天然气业务中撤出，其他传统的融资渠道，如股权投资或基于储备的贷款（RBL）工具正在枯竭，美国私人石油和天然气生产商正在寻找一个蓬勃发展的替代资金市场。

这就是已探明及已开发产量（PDP）的证券化，即石油或天然气生产商在资产支持证券化（ABS）交易中发行债券。换句话说，上游生产商用他们的石油和/或天然气生产的现金作为抵押，向投资者发行票据。

能源资产证券化

首个能源资产的证券化发生在2019年，但在过去的一年里，随着许多私人生产商寻求多元化资金来源，它已经迅速得到了普及。

“由石油和天然气资产支持的证券化有助于使公司的资金来源多样化，这些公司通常会从更传统的来源获得资金，如基于储备的贷款（RBL）工具、高收益债券的发行或股权投资。”惠誉评级在2020年初表示，当时这种类型的资金是全新的，疫情还没有压垮石油需求。

“新发行的交易提供了稳定的现金流，因为耗损率是相当可预测的，这取决于油井的年龄和整体资产的多样化。”该评级机构在2020年2月时指出。

信用评级公司DBRS晨星在2021年5月表示，即使在疫情引发的油价剧烈波动期间，已探明油气开发生产（PDP）的证券化显示出的波动性要小得多，主要是因为商品价格对冲和证券化的结构特征。

惠誉评级公司在2021年9月的一份报告中说，尽管油气价格波动很大，而且疫情期间运营商破产，但PDP证券化的表现在疫情期间仍然很有弹性。

“大部分产量的必要对冲限制了碳氢化合物价格波动对预期收入的影响。此外，PDP生产的盈亏平衡成本很低，因为大部分的资本支出成本已经发生。”该信用评级机构说。

蓬勃发展的能源ABS市场

根据路透社援引古根海姆证券的数据，在2022年，石油和天然气资产证券化市场真正开花结果，能源ABS交易的价值比2021年增加了两倍。今年到目前为止，私人公司已经向投资者出售了39亿美元的PDP证券化交易，而去年只有12亿美元。

今年还出现了自三年前PDP证券化融资交易开始以来，美国能源生产商最大的一次证券化融资，由其生产资产的一部分作为支持。

这是10月份为天然气生产商Jonah Energy LLC进行的一笔7.5亿美元证券化融资交易，该公司总部位于丹佛，在怀俄明州苏布莱特县的Jonah和Pinedale油田运营。该公司通过发行由其部分生产资产支持的7.5亿美元全额摊销票据，成功完成了其第一笔证券化融资交易。

Jonah Energy的资产和业务位于怀俄明州苏布莱特县的大绿河盆地内，包括位于Jonah油田及周边地区的2400多口生产井和13万多英亩净地。

该公司总裁兼首席执行官汤姆-哈特说：“我很高兴完成了一项长期融资交易，完全偿还了我们的抵押贷款，这使我们拥有了强大的资产负债表，以寻求我们的耕地上的重要钻探机会和可能出现的战略机会。”

古根海姆证券公司是此次发行的唯一结构顾问、账簿管理人和配售代理，该公司表示，Jonah Energy公司是迄今为止完成的最大的资产支持证券化项目。

古根海姆证券结构性产品发起团队的高级常务董事Anuj Bhartiya说，这项ABS交易是迄今为止完成的最大的PDP证券化，也是古根海姆证券为能源行业构建的第三笔“144A交易”（合格的机构投资者私下交易“限制性证券”的权利，每笔交易的下限为50万美元。同时，证券商不得向个人或不符合规定的投资者出售此类“限制性证券”），反映了行业领导者和市场参与者对能源相关ABS在市场上的适用性的信心。

怀俄明州最大的天然气生产商PureWest Energy在8月成功完成了第二次资产支持证券化，提供3.65亿美元的资产支持票据，该票据由PureWest的部分生产天然气资产抵押。该交易是在PureWest于2021年11月进行的首次6亿美元的证券化之后进行的。

PureWest能源公司预计在2022年第三季度将票据发行的收益，连同PureWest资产负债表上的多余现金，分配给其股权持有人。

律师事务所Sidley Austin LLP的能源金融合伙人Daniel Allison去年在Hart Energy杂志上写道，石油和天然气证券化产品对投资者和生产商都有好处。Allison说，投资者有一个相对可预测的石油和天然气PDP的现金流状况，所以他们——以及评级机构——认为生产风险是 "一个可容忍的变量"。Allison说，生产者可以利用能源资产证券化来分散他们的资本结构，或者在其他市场不那么有利的情况下利用这一替代市场。

曹海斌 编译自 油价网

A New Type Of Oil And Gas Funding Is Booming

Oil and gas producers are diversifying their funding sources.

Energy asset securitization is a new type of funding that is quicking gaining in popularity. 

Oil and gas securitization offerings could be beneficial to both investors and producers, Daniel Allison, energy finance partner with law firm Sidley Austin LLP, said. 

As banks have pulled back from funding oil and gas operations and other traditional sources of financing such as equity investment or reserve-based lending (RBL) facilities are drying up, private U.S. oil and gas producers are looking at a booming market for alternative fundin.    

That’s the proved developed producing (PDP) securitization, in which an oil or gas producer issues bonds in an asset-backed securitization (ABS) transaction. In other words, upstream producers use the cash from their oil and/or gas production as collateral for the notes placed with investors.  

Energy Assets Securitization 

The first such energy asset securitization took place in 2019, but it has quickly gained popularity over the past year as many private producers look to diversify their funding sources. 

“Securitizations backed by oil and gas assets help diversify funding sources for companies that would typically access capital from more traditional sources, such as reserve based lending (RBL) facilities, high-yield bond issuance or equity investment,” Fitch Rating said in early 2020 when this type of funding was brand-new and the pandemic hadn’t crushed oil demand yet.

“The newly issued transactions provide stable cash flow as depletion rates are fairly predictable depending on the age of the wells and the overall diversification,” the rating agency noted back in February 2020. 

Even during the pandemic and the volatile prices in 2020 and 2021, oil and gas proved developed producing (PDP) securitizations showed much less volatility, “largely because of commodity price hedges and structural features of the securitizations,” credit ratings firm DBRS Morningstar said in May 2021. 

The performance of PDP securitization remained resilient during Covid, despite high volatility in oil and gas prices and operator bankruptcies during the pandemic, Fitch Ratings said in a report in September 2021. 

“Required hedges on a majority of production volumes limit the effects hydrocarbon price fluctuations have on expected revenues. Additionally, PDP production has low breakeven costs, as the majority of capex costs have been incurred,” the credit rating agency said. 

Booming Energy ABS Market 

In 2022, the oil and gas asset securitization market has really blossomed, with energy ABS deals tripling in value from 2021, according to data from Guggenheim Securities cited by Reuters. So far this year, private firms have sold to investors $3.9 billion in PDP securitizations, up from just $1.2 billion last year. 

This year also saw the single-largest securitized financing for a U.S. energy producer, backed by a portion of its producing assets, since the PDP securitization funding deals began three years ago. 

That was a transaction in October for $750 million securitized financing for natural gas producer Jonah Energy LLC, a Denver-headquartered firm operating in the Jonah and Pinedale Fields in Sublette County, Wyoming. Jonah Energy successfully closed its first securitized financing transaction by offering $750 million fully amortizing notes backed by a portion of its producing assets. 

Jonah Energy’s assets and operations are located within the Greater Green River Basin in Sublette County, Wyoming, and consist of over 2,400 producing wells and over 130,000 net acres located in the Jonah Field and surrounding area.   

“I’m pleased to have completed a long-term financing transaction that completely pays down our RBL, which positions us with a strong balance sheet to pursue the significant drilling opportunities that we have on our acreage and strategic opportunities that may come our way,” Jonah Energy’s President and chief executive Tom Hart said. 

Guggenheim Securities, which was the sole structuring advisor, book-running manager, and placement agent of the offering, said that Jonah Energy’s was the biggest asset-backed securitization completed to date.  

“This ABS transaction, which represents the largest PDP securitization completed to-date and the third 144A that Guggenheim Securities has structured for the energy sector, reflects the confidence of industry leaders and market participants in the suitability of energy-related ABS in the market,” said Anuj Bhartiya, Senior Managing Director in Guggenheim’s Structured Products Origination team.  

PureWest Energy, Wyoming’s largest natural gas producer, successfully closed in August a second asset-backed securitization—after one last year—offering $365 million of asset-backed notes collateralized by a portion of PureWest’s producing natural gas assets. The transaction followed PureWest’s initial $600 million securitization in November 2021. 

PureWest Energy expected to distribute the proceeds from the notes offering, together with excess cash on PureWest’s balance sheet, to its equity holders in the third quarter of 2022. 

Oil and gas securitization offerings could be beneficial to both investors and producers, Daniel Allison, energy finance partner with law firm Sidley Austin LLP, wrote last year in Hart Energy. Investors have a relatively predictable cash flow profile of an oil and gas PDP, so they—and rating agencies—see production risk as “a tolerable variable,” Allison says. Producers, for their part, can use energy asset securitization to either diversify their capital structure or tap this alternative market when others are less favorable, according to Allison.