Japan: Osaka Gas Secures USD 302 Million Loan for Gorgon LNG

The Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) signed a loan agreement totaling up to 211.4 million U.S. dollars (JBIC portion) with Osaka Gas Gorgon (OGG), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Osaka Gas in Australia.

The loan, provided in project financing, is cofinanced with The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ (lead arranger). The overall cofinancing amounts to 302 million U.S. dollars.

This is one of the world’s largest-scale LNG projects where Osaka Gas (through OGG) and 5 other companies comprising Chevron, Exxon Mobil , Royal Dutch Shell, Tokyo Gas and Chubu Electric Power, jointly develop Gorgon, Jansz and other large-scale gas fields off the northwest coast of the state of Western Australia and transport gas through an undersea pipeline to a liquefaction plant on Barrow Island located in the same state.

The plant is expected to produce and sell up to 15 million tons of LNG annually from the year 2014.

This loan will finance OGG for developing this Project. The aggregate of the amount of LNG which Osaka Gas takes from Chevron (1,375 thousand tons per year) and the amount which OGG has the right to take delivery of corresponding to OGG’s interest in this Project (187.5 thousand tons per year), totaling 1,562.5 thousand tons, is equivalent to about 20% of the LNG purchased annually by Osaka Gas.

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LNG World News Staff, March 23, 2012; Image: Chevron