Trader Trafigura secures $200mln credit amid crisis

SINGAPORE, Nov 13 (Reuters) - Trafigura Beheer B.V. said on Thursday it had secured a $200 million syndicated revolving credit facility to fund trading activities amid the global financial turmoil and reduced liquidity in financial markets.

The European energy and commodities trading house said the facility served as a refinancing of the existing one-year $175 million facility for 2007.

"At a time of extraordinary financial market circumstances, we are very pleased with the banks' continued commitment which comes as a result of the strength and stability of our company's operation," Trafigura's chief financial officer Pierre Lorinet said in a statement.

The Asian over-the-counter (OTC) swaps trade, the main type of contract in a region lacking a local futures market, had halved as the global credit market freezed up after the collapse of Lehman Brothers and crisis of confidence in once blue-chip financial institutions.

Broking firms consolidated and some trading firms cut jobs in the region in the wake of the crisis. Others that have exited Asia include French bank BNP Paribas (BNPP.PA), which shut its derivatives trading desk in the second quarter and relocated in London.

As counterparty anxiety grows, Goldman Sachs (GS.N), the top oil trader on Wall Street, had been restricted from making a market in price assessment agency Platts' daily oil trading window last month but the review was lifted two weeks later.

Morgan Stanley (MS.N) was also recently again able to deal without restrictions in the half-hour Asia oil trading window, after withdrawing from the window for nearly two months as Platts placed it under review on counterparty concerns about its credit status.

But banks such as Standard Chartered (STAN.L) set out to expand their Asian energy trading operations, hiring a number of ex-Lehman Brothers traders.

Trafigura's $200 million facility, arranged by Standard Chartered Bank, United Overseas Bank Ltd and a branch of Westpac Banking Corp, has a tenor of 364 days, with two one-year extension options, it said.

In March, Trafigura secured an increased $1.6 billion multi-currency credit facility with mainly European banks.

Trafigura has said it trades about 1.7 million barrels per day (bpd) of physical oil. Its net turnover hit $51 billion in 2007, of which about 75 percent came from trading in oil and the rest from metals. (Reporting by Judy Hua; Editing by Ramthan Hussain)