U.S.-based exploration and production (E&P) company Northern Oil and Gas Inc. has announced that it will refinance its outstanding long-term debt and undertake a $250 million acquisition in the Appalachian Basin. We expect the proposed refinancing to improve the company's maturity and liquidity profiles. Therefore, we are raising our issuer credit rating on Northern to 'B-' from 'CCC+'. At the same time, we are assigning our 'B' issue-level rating and '2' recovery rating to the company's new senior unsecured notes due 2028. The stable outlook reflects our expectation that Northern's funds from operations (FFO) to debt will remain in the mid 30% area while it sustains debt to EBITDA of comfortably below 3x for the next two years. The stable
