Capital risk management

The Company’s objectives when managing capital are to safeguard the Company’s ability to continue as a going concern in order to provide returns for shareholders, benefits for other stakeholders and to maintain a capital structure which optimizes the Company’s cost of capital while at the same time ensuring diversification of sources of external funds.

The Company generally uses its corporate revolving credit facility (RCF, US$1 billion) to bridge financing requirements on projects under construction prior to putting a dedicated project finance facility in place. When a project finance facility is arranged and draw-downs have started, the RCF is repaid and a corporate guarantee from the Company is put in place for the construction period. When the project facility is drawn in full and the associated FPSO is producing, the corporate guarantee is recovered and the project finance becomes non-recourse debt.

As per December 31, 2022, all the debt associated with operating FPSOs is non-recourse.

The Company has limited appetite to decrease the existing debt in its structure, as this would involve breakage cost, through winding down the hedges and it would decrease the Company’s return on equity. From time to time, it may decide to refinance existing facilities in order to increase and/or extend the tenor of leverage subject to sufficient charter tenor and income.

Given the non-recourse nature of a large part of its debt, the Company monitors its capital risk based on the Lease Backlog Cover Ratio, which is also used by the bank consortium supporting the Company’s RCF. Generally, this ratio is calculated as the net present value of the future contracted net cash, after deducting the project finance debt and interest payments, of a selected group of FPSO owning entities divided by 1.5 (see note 4.3.23 Borrowings and Lease Liabilities).

The gearing ratios at December 31, 2022 and 2021 were as follows:

Capital risk management