Malaysia's Petronas Raises $6bn in Bond Sale

Malaysia's state oil and gas producer Petronas has raised $6bn from a multi-tranche senior bond offering, marking its first such sale in five years, it announced on April 15.

The offering consists of $2.25bn of 10-year conventional notes priced at 3.65%, $2.75bn of 30-year notes at 4.55% and $1bn of 40-year notes at 4.8%.

Demand for the bonds was "robust," Petronas said, reaching $37bn – one of the largest order books by an Asian company on record. This reflects the market's confidence in Petronas' credit strength, recently confirmed by Moody's at A2 and by S&P at A-, both with stable outlooks, the company said.

This is the first time Petronas has tapped the international US dollar bond market since staging a $5bn multi-tranche offering in March 2015. Proceeds will be used for debt financing, and covering capital expenditure, working capital and general corporate purposes.

BofA Securities and Citigroup acted as joint global coordinators for the issues. They also served as joint bookrunners alongside HSBC, Maybank and MUFG. Petronas manages all Malaysia's oil and gas resources and is a major LNG exporter.