Novatek’s Yamal LNG agrees $4.1 bln loan

Novatek-operated Yamal LNG project in Russia has secured a €3.6 billion (US$4.1 billion) loan from Sberbank and Gazprombank. 

Reuters reports, citing a company document, that the loan is for a 16-year period with interest rate set at six-month EURIBOR (currently at -0.132 percent) plus the margin of up to 4.8 percent.

Novatek’s CEO Leonid Mikhelson in March said that the external financing for the Yamal LNG project is to be closed within two to three months.

The new loan from Sberbank and Gazprombank adds to the funds that have already been secured that include $2.3 billion provided by the government through the Russian National Wealth Fund. In March, total funding including that provided by the project shareholders amounted to $15 billion.

With the recent sale of a 9.9 percent stake to China’s Silk Road Fund, bringing in €1.08 billion ($1.2 billion), and the newly agreed loan, the funding has risen to over $20 billion.

An additional $12 billion in loans from Chinese banks, which would close the projects financing, has been revealed in December last year by Novatek’s CEO, however, no agreement has yet been finalized.

Shareholders in the Yamal LNG project include Novatek with a 50.1 percent stake, Total and CNPC with a 20 percent stake each and SRF with a 9.9 percent stake.

Yamal LNG project includes the construction of a liquefaction plant with annual capacity of 16.5 million tons per annum based on the feedstock resources of the South-Tambeyskoye field.

The production from the LNG project is scheduled to start in 2017, when the first train with a capacity to produce 5.5 million tons of LNG per year is scheduled to come online without additional financing, as Novatek’s department head Stanislav Shevkunov said earlier in March.

LNG World News Staff