USD 10 Billion LNG Project Given Go-Ahead

A final investment decision was made on Wednesday, August 6, for Japan LNG Investment (JLI), a joint venture company between Nippon Yusen Kabushiki Kaisha (NYK) and the Mitsubishi Corporation (MC), regarding Cameron LNG (CLNG), a natural gas liquefaction and export business to be jointly owned together with Sempra Energy, GDF SUEZ S.A., and Mitsui & Co. Ltd.

This project is located in the U.S. state of Louisiana and will involve construction of new LNG liquefaction facilities and an export facility at the existing LNG receiving terminals held by CLNG.

The total expense of the project — for building the plant for LNG operations, funding, investment in existing facilities, and other expenses — is expected to be about 10 billion dollars.

A financing agreement for about 7.4bn dollars has been agreed with the Japan Bank for International Cooperation and private banks. A portion of the financing by the private banks is insured by Nippon Export and Investment Insurance.

In June 2014, CLNG obtained permission from the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to construct the liquefaction terminal and conditional permission from the U.S Department of Energy (DOE) to export LNG to countries with which the U.S. does not have a free-trade agreement. Full export approval is expected later this year from the DOE.

Export capability is expected to be approximately 12 million tons per annum and will be utilized from 2018 by GDF SUEZ S.A., Mitsui & Co. Ltd., and MC in accordance with a tolling agreement among the parties.

[mappress]
Press Release; August 7, 2014