Description: The database organizes financial information about loan and bond underwriting identified in the Bloomberg Terminal, and is currently limited to information provided through that service. The focus is on the flow of financial capital into Amazonia for oil and gas exploration, production, and trade, especially for projects designed to expand oil production in current and new oil blocks. The database is evolving, and the methodology will be updated to reflect this.
- Queries
The Bloomberg terminal is utilized to identify the fixed income products in this report. Bloomberg’s fixed income search function, SRCH, is utilized for both asset classes of corporate bonds and loans. The list of oil and gas companies used for the queries was developed by SRG in the course of research described in preceding reports; namely, the ‘European Banks Financing Trade of Controversial Amazon Oil to the U.S.’, ‘Banking on Amazon Destruction’ and ‘Linked Fates: How California’s Oil Imports Affect the Future of the Amazon Rainforest’ and is updated annually to reflect changes in block operators, company ownership, etc.
The query includes all open deals as of January 1, 2019. Deals that are closed remain in the database. The rationale for starting the query on January 1, 2019 and keeping closed deals in the database is to be able to assess each bank’s recent past involvement in Amazon oil and gas as well as current deals, in order to assess the bank’s overall influence in the region and the potential for their future engagement. Future updates will be additive, so the database totals will grow over time. Financial figures are converted to USD as of the date of their Bloomberg query.
- Parsing bank financing per deal
In some cases, the financial contribution of each participating bank in a deal is indicated in the query results. In these cases, the sum of all banks’ contributions to the deal are checked to ensure they total to the deal amount. Where the total of the amounts parsed per bank is equal to the deal amount, or within +/- 5% error, these contributions are used as the financial commitment per bank in that deal. Where the error is higher than 5%, or where the ‘Lead Managers’ column does not identify the contribution of each participating bank in the deal, the methodology used in the Global Coal Exit List to create attribution based on the number of bookrunners in each deal is applied.
Bookrunners typically contribute more to deals than other participating banks. The size of a bookrunner’s commitment compared to other participants is an estimate assigned based on the book ratio. In this methodology, the book ratio is defined as the spread of the financial contributions of all participating banks between bookrunners and other managers; where:
Bookratio = (# of participants – # of bookrunners)/ # of bookrunners.
The Bloomberg role code for each bank in the deal is used to determine if a bank is a bookrunner, a participant, or a non-participant (advisor). All banks that qualify as bookrunners or participants are assigned an amount of the total deal based on the book ratio where the individual amount assigned to each bookrunner or participant is an equal share of the total assigned to each group. Banks and other firms involved in the deal in non-participating (advisory) roles are not assigned any of the deal amount because they do not contribute any financing to the deal. Each bank that has more than one role in a deal is only counted once and is counted as a bookrunner if one of its roles meets that criteria. For deals where no bookrunners are identified, all participants are assigned an equal share of the deal amount. Once each deal is parsed, a unique identifier is created for each bank in each deal, based on its role and assigned amounts.
- Screening out duplicates
As well as the unique identifier per bank per role in each deal, each deal is given a unique deal ID, which allows the database to track the deal and all of the banks associated with it. The identifier consisted of the issuer name, the deal amount, the issue date, and the maturity date. Since deals could have tranches or be reissued with new FIGIs and different maturity dates or deal amounts, we manually review deals to remove duplicates as much as possible. If a deal is suspected of being duplicated e.g. the deal has the same issuer, issue date and deal amount as another one in the database, it is removed. As well, all refinancing deals where the issuer and deal amount are the same as another deal are removed if there is no other designation under the ‘use of proceeds’ data from Bloomberg. This is to avoid double-counting financing that has been adjusted but for which the original deal amount has not been increased. Finally, green bonds, sustainability-linked financing, and financing for projects that are related to green energy are removed.
- Creating geographic adjusters for exposure to Amazon oil and gas
Each Company (issuer/ borrower) is assessed for its relationship to Amazon oil and gas using the categories ‘direct’, ‘indirect’, and ‘not Amazon’. Deals for companies who are deemed directly or indirectly related to the Amazon are counted as part of each bank’s Amazon-exposed fossil fuel financing, while ‘not-Amazon’ companies are 100% excluded.
Companies that are not-Amazon are those where the issuer/borrower is a subsidiary of a multinational, where the parent company has operations in the Amazon but the subsidiary involved in the deal is not related. All issuers/borrowers deemed ‘not-Amazon’ are omitted from the analysis.
Companies that have direct relationships include e.g. block operators and state-run oil companies. These companies are assigned an adjuster based on the proportion of capital expenditures (CAPEX), operating costs (OPEX) and production costs associated with their Amazon oil and gas projects. Each company’s Amazon blocks are identified as being inside or outside of the boundary of Amazonia. To qualify as 100% direct, a company must have the majority of its oil and gas projects in the Amazon biome, and all of its major producing blocks. For companies with fewer of its operations in the Amazon biome, the proportion of total annual CAPEX and OPEX that is considered ‘Amazon’ is used as a proxy for the proportion of financing that could be considered direct vs. indirect. The following formulas are applied, using annual figures taken from each company’s latest annual report:
Geographic Adjuster = (Amazon OPEX + Amazon CAPEX)/(Total CAPEX + Total OPEX)
Where:
- Amazon OPEX (proxy) = (Amazon production/Total production) x production cost per barrel; where production is reported in boe/day and cost is average USD per barrel for that year.
- Amazon CAPEX = (# Amazon blocks under exploration/ # total blocks under exploration) x total CAPEX; assuming that CAPEX is equal per exploratory block
- Total CAPEX is annual as reported by the company
- Total OPEX is annual as reported by the company
- CAPEX is only included in the formula where the company lists these costs for exploratory blocks in the Amazon biome in their latest annual report (current as of 2021 but will be updated)
Companies that are indirect are typically subsidiaries of multinational firms, where the deals cannot be guaranteed to be related to Amazon oil and gas, but where there is enough information to conclude that the issuer/borrower has activities in the Amazon oil and gas sector. For example, an international revolving credit facility for a major global oil trader who trades oil out of Ecuador is indirectly Amazon related because it is likely that some amount was spent in their Amazon operations, but there is not enough information to create a geographic adjuster. Given this lack of transparency in financial data regarding the geography of financing, the majority of financing identified in the database is categorized as ‘indirect’. It is not correct to omit indirect financing from the analysis, since many of the companies that cannot be directly traced are known to play major roles in the Amazon oil and gas sector. This analysis therefore errs on the side of caution and includes it, separate from direct financing, while also providing the necessary caveats. Indirect financing is not counted in any of the bank ranking totals or analysis. Companies or banks who wish to contest the inclusion of indirect financing may report their concerns to SRG at srg@stand.earth.