New York, May 12, 2017 -- Moody's Investors Service ("Moody's") affirmed Empresa Nacional del Petróleo's
("ENAP") Baa3 global scale foreign currency rating. Moody's maintained
the company's b2 Baseline Credit Assessment, which reflects its
weak liquidity, elevated financial leverage, volatile refining
margins, and small operating size. These credit negatives
are counter-balanced by ENAP's strong market position in Chile,
its business diversification, and a high level of implicit government
support. The outlook on the rating remains stable.
RATINGS RATIONALE
ENAP's Baa3 rating is based on the company's long operating history,
high market share in Chile and increasing business diversity. While
ENAP is the sole refiner in the country, its revenues and cash flow
have steadily benefitted from oil and gas exploration and production,
which in 2016 contributed over 30% of EBITDA. In addition,
since 2014, the company's power generation business has supported
efforts to control costs using ENAP's own natural gas to generate power,
which in turn is used in its refining operations or sold to third parties.
However, ENAP's ratings are constrained by a tight liquidity management,
the inherent volatility of commodity prices and the resulting uncertain
cash flow generation and profitability, as well as elevated debt
leverage, which reached 7.4 times in 2016. In that
year, ENAP's debt increased only slightly but leverage soared from
5.8x in 2015 given lower operating profit, driven by increasing
international crude prices and lower crack spreads. Increasing
oil prices indirectly strain ENAP's refining margins since the company
is prohibited from passing along increased power generation costs,
which in Chile is mostly diesel.
Moody's expects ENAP's leverage to remain elevated in 2017 as the company
increases capex related to refinery upgrades and mandatory environmental
projects. From 2018 on, leverage should decline as investments
mainly in oil and gas production generate increasing cash flows and crack
spreads are not materially lower than historical average. Since
Chile keeps local fuel prices at parity with prices in the US Gulf of
Mexico, changes in international crude prices pass quickly to local
prices and do not affect refining margins significantly.
Since ENAP is 100% owned by the Chilean government, the company's
Baa3 rating reflects the application of Moody's joint default rating methodology
for government-related issuers (GRIs). ENAP's Baa3 rating
benefits from five notches of uplift from the b2 Baseline Credit Assessment
(BCA, which represents the intrinsic risk of the company,
regardless of implicit support) given Moody's assumption of a high probability
of support from the government of Chile in a distress situation.
As evidence of support, in 2008 the government of Chile injected
USD 250 million to ENAP's capital to help the company deal with liquidity
constraints.
ENAP is strategically important to the Chilean energy sector as demonstrated
by its solid market share as a supplier of 100% of gasoline and
44% of diesel consumption in the country. The government
of Chile appoints the company's board members and is very involved in
ENAP's budget approval and business strategy. The Chilean government's
ability to provide support to ENAP is measured by its Aa3 credit rating
and stable outlook, weakened somewhat by the high correlation between
the government and the company on credit factors that could cause stress
on both simultaneously.
ENAP's liquidity is weak, although supported by the benefits associated
with its ownership by the Chilean state. As of December 31,
2016, ENAP's cash stood at USD 66 million, which negatively
compares with the USD 756 million in debt maturing in 2017. However,
USD 486 million in short term debt are related to bank short term facilities,
used to import crude and oil products; Moody's believes that ENAP
will continue to be able to roll over these facilitates relatively easily.
The constant need to access banking credit facilities is a concern but
ENAP's funding strategy and financial policies have allowed the company
to quickly adjust local prices to volatile costs and thus protect its
profit margin.
The company's refinancing risk is high. Its scheduled debt payments
as of December 2016 in the next years are as follows: USD 756 million
in 2017, USD 392 million in 2018, USD 582 million in 2019,
and USD 2.15 billion thereafter. Additionally, ENAP
does not have committed lines of revolving credit. Refinancing
concerns, however, are partially tempered by good capital
market access. Furthermore, the company's bank loans are
currently not subject to financial covenants.
ENAP's stable rating outlook assumes that the company will continue to
focus on increasing operating cash flow to reduce leverage over the medium-term
and that Chilean government support of the company will remain high.
A significantly improved and sustained financial leverage profile more
supportive of the cyclicality and volatility of the refining sector could
lead to an upgrade, specifically debt/EBITDA at or below 5x.
If ENAP is unable to continue its deleveraging trend or if there are indications
of reduced implicit government support for ENAP, its BCA or its
foreign currency rating could be downgraded.
ENAP is Chile national oil company and the second largest state-owned
company in the country. The company is 100% owned by the
government of Chile (Aa3 stable). ENAP operates in three business
segments: Exploration & Production (11% of revenues and
31% of EBITDA in 2016), Refining & Marketing (85%
and 72%) and Gas & Power (4% and -2%).
ENAP owns three refineries in Chile and is the only refinery company in
the country, with a total crude distillation capacity of approximately
230,000 barrels per day. The company's upstream operations
hold 139 million boe (barrels of oil equivalent) in total proved reserves,
of which 37% are in Argentina, followed by Chile with 35%,
Ecuador with 19% and Egypt with 9%. ENAP was founded
in 1950 and is headquartered in Santiago, Chile. In 2016,
it had total assets in the amount of $5.8 billion.
The methodologies used in these ratings were Refining and Marketing Industry
published in November 2016, and Government-Related Issuers
published in October 2014. Please see the Rating Methodologies
page on www.moodys.com for a copy of these methodologies.
REGULATORY DISCLOSURES
For ratings issued on a program, series or category/class of debt,
this announcement provides certain regulatory disclosures in relation
to each rating of a subsequently issued bond or note of the same series
or category/class of debt or pursuant to a program for which the ratings
are derived exclusively from existing ratings in accordance with Moody's
rating practices. For ratings issued on a support provider,
this announcement provides certain regulatory disclosures in relation
to the credit rating action on the support provider and in relation to
each particular credit rating action for securities that derive their
credit ratings from the support provider's credit rating. For provisional
ratings, this announcement provides certain regulatory disclosures
in relation to the provisional rating assigned, and in relation
to a definitive rating that may be assigned subsequent to the final issuance
of the debt, in each case where the transaction structure and terms
have not changed prior to the assignment of the definitive rating in a
manner that would have affected the rating. For further information
please see the ratings tab on the issuer/entity page for the respective
issuer on www.moodys.com.
For any affected securities or rated entities receiving direct credit
support from the primary entity(ies) of this credit rating action,
and whose ratings may change as a result of this credit rating action,
the associated regulatory disclosures will be those of the guarantor entity.
Exceptions to this approach exist for the following disclosures,
if applicable to jurisdiction: Ancillary Services, Disclosure
to rated entity, Disclosure from rated entity.
Regulatory disclosures contained in this press release apply to the credit
rating and, if applicable, the related rating outlook or rating
review.
Please see www.moodys.com for any updates on changes to
the lead rating analyst and to the Moody's legal entity that has issued
the rating.
Please see the ratings tab on the issuer/entity page on www.moodys.com
for additional regulatory disclosures for each credit rating.
Nymia C. Almeida
VP - Senior Credit Officer
Corporate Finance Group
Moody's de Mexico S.A. de C.V
Ave. Paseo de las Palmas
No. 405 - 502
Col. Lomas de Chapultepec
Mexico, DF 11000
Mexico
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Client Service: 1 212 553 1653
Marianna Waltz, CFA
MD - Corporate Finance
Corporate Finance Group
JOURNALISTS: 800 891 2518
Client Service: 1 212 553 1653
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