Every major financing has a moment of quiet tension. The capital is ready, the project is sound, but each lender at the table is asking the same question: if something goes wrong, how am I protected?
That question sat at the heart of a recent transaction for Emadeb Energy Services Limited. Emadeb is a Nigerian owned oil producer developing the Ibom Field, which sits within Petroleum Prospecting Licence 236, the licence that grants the right to explore and produce in that area. The field is already producing, and its operator is now expanding it with new wells and platform development designed to increase output.
Expansion on this scale needs serious capital. Two very different financiers came together to provide it. Shell Western Supply and Trading Limited provided a prepayment facility against future crude oil deliveries and will also buy the crude produced. Another Nigerian Lender provided term loan and working capital facilities.
United Capital Trustees Limited served as Security Trustee.
Holding the line for everyone
When a company borrows from more than one lender, it pledges assets as security for repayment. Rather than each lender holding its own share separately, an independent trustee holds the entire security package on behalf of all of them. The trustee coordinates the documentation, keeps the structure coherent, and protects every secured party equally.
It is a role built on neutrality and precision. On this transaction, we coordinated a comprehensive security enhancement package and the related documentation, creating a framework that gave a global energy major and a leading Nigerian bank shared confidence in one structure.
Why it matters now
Nigeria’s oil story has moved from the field to the trading floor. A historic refinery listing has drawn investors’ attention to the entire value chain, and expanding refining capacity creates a simple, urgent need: more domestic crude. That supply depends on indigenous producers raising capital for wells and platforms, and that capital depends on structures lenders trust.
By coordinating the security framework on this financing, United Capital Trustees helped connect international and local capital to Nigerian reserves, turning confidence into production.
Trust as infrastructure
Roads, pipelines and platforms are the visible infrastructure of growth. Trust is the invisible kind. Behind every complex financing is an institution whose job is to make every party comfortable enough to commit.
At United Capital Trustees, that is the work we do: helping businesses access the capital they need, and giving the people who provide it the assurance they deserve.
Planning a financing with multiple lenders? Speak with United Capital Trustees.
