Japanese banks biggest lenders to LNG projects

Japan’s Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Mizuho and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp took the top three spots in Poten & Partners’ 2015 ranking of the world’s LNG project finance lenders.

Japanese banks took five of the top 10 positions in the inaugural rankings published by Poten, a global brokerage, consultancy and business intelligence publisher. The Netherlands’ ING came in fourth and France’s Societe Generale was ranked number five, according to Poten & Partner’s ranking.

Forty-eight lenders from 15 countries provided most of the global LNG project finance funds in 2014. In total, banks included in the rankings extended project finance loans of $12.28 billion in 2014.

Eleven Japanese banks provided over $5 billion to LNG projects or 43% of total lending in 2014, while twenty European banks accounted for $4.8 billion of total lending. Other lenders in the Asia Pacific region, which included banks from Australia, Singapore, South Korea and China, provided $941 million.

Despite the US hosting the two biggest project financings of 2014 – Cameron LNG and Freeport LNG – only $780 million came from US lenders and $510 million from Canadian lenders.

Poten & Partners said that bank lending to LNG projects in 2014 eclipsed 2013’s total of $9 billion.

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Image: Freeport LNG