Eric Watkins
Senior Correspondent
LOS ANGELES, Mar. 10 -- Yemen LNG, a consortium led by Total SA, has appointed the arranging banks to lead the financing for development of a $4 billion natural gas liquefaction project planned for the port of Balhaf on the Gulf of Aden.
Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, BNP Paribas, Citigroup, ING, Royal Bank of Scotland, Societe Generale, and SMBC are the initial mandated lead arrangers and bookrunners on a $1.44 billion facility and a $1.2 billion loan that has a guarantee from Total.
The facility is divided between a bank-funded term loan as well as three bank-funded loans with guarantees from one of three export credit agencies.
Last month, the third Yemen LNG chartered vessel was launched at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries' (MHI) shipyard in Nagasaki, Japan. The vessel, Hull No. 2223, is one of four tankers chartered to Yemen LNG for the lifespan of the project. Two are under construction in Japan, while the other two were launched in South Korea in 2007.
Hull No. 2223 is currently the largest LNG tanker built by MHI and is the first ever built in Japan using the new dual fuel and diesel engines driving electric propulsion motors. The design aims to ensure improved fuel consumption and fewer emissions than conventional steam turbine LNG tankers.
Construction of the vessel will be complete in this year's fourth quarter, when the ship is scheduled to join the service of Yemen LNG and begin delivering LNG to the US and Mexico.
Yemen LNG has agreed to three, 20-year sales contracts with Korea Gas Corp., Total Gas & Power, and Suez LNG Trading.
The Yemen LNG consortium is comprised of Total 39.62%, Hunt Oil 17.22%, Yemen Gas Co. 16.73%, SK Energy Co. 9.55%, Korea Gas 6%, Hyundai 5.88%, and Yemen's General Authority for Social Security and Pensions of Yemen 5%.
Contact Eric Watkins at [email protected].
