Swift Current secures US$750m bank line with route to US$1bn

Swift Current Energy has closed a US$750m corporate credit facility with a US$250m accordion, giving the US power developer a potential US$1bn of financing capacity as it advances a large pipeline of energy projects.

The three-year, dual-tranche facility gives Swift Current access to both cash borrowing and letter-of-credit capacity. The company did not disclose how the US$750m commitment is divided between those two forms of liquidity.

Crédit Agricole CIB is administrative agent and a coordinating lead arranger alongside ING Capital and Truist Securities. KeyBank acts as collateral agent and joint lead arranger, with BBVA, MUFG, RBC and Wells Fargo also serving as joint lead arrangers.

Crédit Agricole CIB and ING are additionally acting as green-loan structuring agents.

The accordion should not be treated as committed funding. It allows the company to seek another US$250m, potentially increasing the facility to US$1bn, but the additional capacity remains conditional rather than automatically available.

Pricing was described by the company as competitive but the actual margin was not disclosed. Detailed security terms and utilisation conditions were also not published.

The inclusion of substantial letter-of-credit capacity is particularly relevant to energy development. Developers can be required to provide financial support for contractual, interconnection, construction or other obligations before a project generates operating cash. An LC can satisfy such requirements without forcing an equivalent cash payment at the outset.

Swift Current says it has commercialised 5GW of projects since 2016, owns and operates more than 1GW and has more than 10GW in development. Those are company figures, and the development pipeline should not be interpreted as completed generating capacity.

The corporate facility gives Swift Current liquidity across that broader development platform rather than financing one named project.

That can be valuable where expenditure occurs at different stages and across several assets simultaneously. Instead of arranging a new loan whenever an individual development requires capital or a guarantee, the company can draw against a central pool of corporate credit, subject to the facility’s conditions.

The deal adds another large syndicated financing to a US energy market where power demand is increasing the amount of capital required before new generation can begin producing revenue.