MOSCOW (MRC) -- Moody's Investors Service has today confirmed the Ba1 corporate family rating (CFR) and the Ba1-PD probability of default rating (PDR) of Sibur Holding, PJSC (Sibur), a Russian vertically integrated gas processing and petrochemicals company, said Moody's.
At the same time, Moody's confirmed the Ba1 rating of USD1 billion notes issued by Sibur Securities Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Sibur. The rating agency assigned a negative outlook to all the ratings.
The action concludes the review for downgrade of Sibur's and its notes' rating, which was part of the review for downgrade of ratings of 45 Russian non-financial corporates launched by Moody's on 23 December 2014. The review was prompted by the severe and rapid deterioration in the operating environment in Russia and the heightened risk of a more prolonged and acute economic downturn than originally expected.
The confirmation of Sibur's rating reflects Moody's view that Sibur's business is sufficiently resilient to the weakening of Russia's economic and financial environment, as captured by Moody's downgrade of Russia's sovereign rating and country ceiling to Ba1 from Baa3 with negative outlook on 20 February 2015.
At the same time, Sibur's rating remains constrained by (1) its exposure to the weakening of Russia's credit profile; (2) potentially reduced capex flexibility at later stages of ZapSibNeftekhim project implementation leading to growth in negative free cash flow and debt funding needs; (3) exposure to the risks inherent to the petrochemicals industry, such as price volatility and cyclicality of demand; (4) moderate size compared to that of global chemicals businesses.
The outlook on Sibur's rating is negative, reflecting Sibur's exposure to the deteriorating Russian operating environment, which is also captured by the negative outlook on Russia's government bond rating. The negative outlook also takes into account potential erosion of Sibur's capex flexibility as the company progresses with ZapSibNeftekhim investment project implementation. Moody's will also be monitoring the company's ability to address increasing country and foreign exchange risks.
As MRC informed earlier, Russian petrochemical firm Sibur said on Wednesday it had agreed a credit line for EUR 1.6 bln (USD1.7 bln) with a consortium of European banks. The agreement was signed in December 2014, it added in its financial report for last year. The long-term financing will be used to cover part of capital expenditures related to Sibur's ZapSib-2 investment project. SIBUR launched construction of ZapSibNeftekhim,a facility for deep hydrocarbon to polyolefin processing, on 17 February 2015.
SIBUR is a vertically integrated gas processing and petrochemicals company. SIBUR owns and operates Russia’s largest gas processing business in terms of associated petroleum gas processing volumes and is a leader in the Russian petrochemicals industry. SIBUR operates 26 production sites in various regions of Russia. The Group employs 26,000 people. The Company sells its products to over 1,400 major customers engaged in the energy, automotive, construction, fast moving consumer goods (FMCG), chemical and other industries in approximately 70 countries worldwide.