Thursday, September 9, 2010

Petronas sells 5% interest in Australia's Gladstone LNG to Total

KUALA LUMPUR: Petroliam Nasional Bhd has sold a 5% interest in Australia's Gladstone Liquefied Natural Gas (GLNG) to Total for an undisclosed sum.

The disposal of the 5% stake on Thursday, Sept 9, reduced Petronas' effective stake in GLNG to 35%. GLNG is an integrated development that includes coal seam gas production and processing facilities, onshore pipelines and LNG plant facilities.

GLNG produces LNG using coal seam gas sourced from the GLNG gas fields in the Bowen and Surat Basins in Queensland, Australia.

According to statement issued by Australian energy pioneer Santos to the Australian Stock Exchange on Thursday, Santos said it was selling its 15% interest in GLNG to Total for A$650 million.

Santos also said Petronas had also entered into an agreement to sell a 5% interest in GLNG to Total.

"Upon completion of the Santos and Petronas sale transactions, the ownership structure of GLNG will be: Santos 45%; Petronas 35%; Total 20%," it said.

Total is one of the world's largest LNG companies with interests in eight producing LNG projects and one under construction. In 2009, it had total LNG sales of 8.8 million tonnes.

Total president and chairman Christophe de Margerie said Total was teaming up with Santos for its expertise in gas production in Australia and with Petronas for its experience in marketing LNG in Asia.

"Total will bring to the project its experience in successfully managing major projects such as the construction of gas liquefaction plants, and its capacity to market LNG to the Asian market," he said

GLNG had on Thursday also signed a binding heads of agreement for the sale of 1.5 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) of LNG to Total for 20 years commencing 2014.

The agreement provides for 1 mtpa of the contracted volumes to be delivered from GLNG train 1 and 0.5 mtpa from train 2.

In addition, GLNG and Petronas have increased the contracted volumes to 3.5 mtpa under their previously announced binding heads of agreement.

The agreement provides for 2.3 mtpa of the Petronas contracted volumes to be delivered from GLNG train 1 and 1.2 mtpa from train 2. Other key terms of the agreement remain in place including the 20 year term.

"The Total and Petronas binding agreements now provide for the sale by GLNG of 5 mtpa of LNG in aggregate, underpinning the development of a two train project. The combined value of the GLNG offtake agreements exceeds A$100 billion," it said.

Santos chief executive officer David Knox said he was delighted that Petronas had increased its offtake from 2 mtpa to 3.5 mtpa with offtake from both trains 1 and 2.

Following the revised joint venture structure and increased LNG offtake obligations on Petronas (under the binding heads of agreement), Petronas will no longer make additional payments to Santos upon reaching final investment decisions for expansion trains.

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