Cheniere receives $3.4 billion lender commitments for Sabine Pass liquefaction project
HOUSTON -- Cheniere Energy Partners has received executed firm financial commitments in aggregate of approximately $3.4 billion to fund the costs of developing, constructing and placing into service the first two liquefaction trains of the Sabine Pass LNG liquefaction project.
"Including the recently announced $2 billion of equity commitments, we have now received financial commitments of approximately $5.4 billion for the construction of Trains 1 and 2 of our Liquefaction Project. Our Credit Facility will be one of the larger facilities in the project financing market, underlying the strong fundamentals of the transaction," said Charif Souki, Chairman and CEO. "Our ability to access a very large credit facility will significantly reduce our costs of financing during construction. We expect to reach a final investment decision and issue notice to proceed to Bechtel."
Cheniere Partners owns 100 percent of the Sabine Pass LNG receiving terminal located on the Sabine Pass Channel in western Cameron Parish, Louisiana. The Sabine Pass terminal has regasification and send-out capacity of 4.0 Bcfd and storage capacity of 16.9 Bcfe.
Cheniere Partners is developing a project to add liquefaction and export capabilities to the existing infrastructure at the Sabine Pass LNG terminal. As currently contemplated, the Liquefaction Project is being designed and permitted for up to four modular LNG trains, each with a nominal capacity of approximately 4.5 mtpa. The Liquefaction Project is expected to be constructed with each LNG train commencing operations approximately six to nine months after the previous train.
In November 2011, Sabine Liquefaction entered into a lump sum turnkey contract for the engineering, procurement and construction of the first two trains of the project with Bechtel Oil, Gas and Chemicals, Inc. Sabine Liquefaction has also entered into four long-term customer sale and purchase agreements (SPA) for a total of 16.0 mtpa of LNG volumes, which represents approximately 89 percent of the nominal LNG volumes. The customers include BG Gulf Coast LNG for 5.5 mtpa, Gas Natural Fenosa for 3.5 mtpa, KOGAS for 3.5 mtpa and GAIL (India) Ltd. for 3.5 mtpa.
07/13/2012