Venture Global LNG announces USD1.3B investment in LNG export facility

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Arlington, Virginia – Venture Global LNG, Inc. (“Venture Global”) and Stonepeak Infrastructure Partners (“Stonepeak”) announced that they have executed definitive agreements under which Stonepeak will exclusively provide a USD1.3 billion equity investment in Venture Global’s 10 million tons per year (MTPY) Calcasieu Pass LNG export facility in Cameron Parish, Louisiana, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

This brings total committed capital to fund the construction of Calcasieu Pass and the continued development of Venture Global’s 20 MTPY Plaquemines LNG and 20 MTPY Delta LNG facilities to USD2.2 billion.

Venture Global LNG Co-CEO Mike Sabel stated, “We are happy to announce this important milestone for Calcasieu Pass and very proud to partner with a world-class investor like Stonepeak. Their team brings a great depth of LNG knowledge and a track record of investing in exceptional infrastructure projects throughout North America.” Co-CEO Bob Pender added, “Calcasieu Pass is already significantly advanced in both site construction and module manufacturing, owing to the $855 million previously raised to date. We are finalizing the balance of our Calcasieu Pass financing with our consortium of project finance lenders, and we look forward to providing LNG to our global customers – Shell, BP, Edison S.p.A., Galp, Repsol and PGNiG – in 2022."

"We are long-term believers in the increasing importance of LNG as a global source of greener, cheaper energy and Stonepeak could not be more pleased to support Venture Global through the financing of this exciting project. Calcasieu Pass will be a critical provider of LNG to its blue-chip customer base and we look forward to supporting Venture Global, who we believe to be a global leader in developing low cost LNG production, in its efforts to bring cost-advantaged supply to new and existing markets,” said Stonepeak Senior Managing Director Jack Howell.

The 10 MTPY nameplate Venture Global Calcasieu Pass facility will employ a comprehensive process solution from Baker Hughes, a GE company (BHGE) that utilizes highly efficient mid-scale, modular, factory-fabricated liquefaction trains. Kiewit is designing, engineering, constructing, commissioning, testing and guaranteeing the Calcasieu Pass facility. Calcasieu Pass has received all necessary permits, including FERC authorization and Non-FTA export authorization from the U.S. Department of Energy, and construction activities are ongoing with over USD250 million spent on site preparation work, final engineering and equipment purchases and fabrication. Venture Global expects to secure FERC and DOE authorizations for Plaquemines LNG in the third quarter of this year and commence construction shortly thereafter.

Morgan Stanley served as the exclusive financial advisor for Venture Global LNG on this transaction and Latham & Watkins LLP served as Venture Global’s legal counsel. Simpson Thacher served as legal counsel for Stonepeak. As part of the investment, Stonepeak Managing Director James Wyper will join the board of Calcasieu Pass.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- The small gasoline-producing unit at Exxon Mobil Corp’s 560,500 barrel per day (bpd) Baytown, Texas, refinery will be shut for at least another month of repairs to a fire-damaged hydrotreater, reported Reuters with reference to Gulf Coast market sources.

The 90,000 bpd gasoline-producing Fluidic Catalytic Cracking Unit 2 (FCCU 2) was shut by a March 16 fire on Hydrofining Unit-9 (HU 9), which removes sulfur from the gasoline.

Exxon spokesman Jeremy Eikenberry declined to comment.

The company is building a new heater for HU 9, which was severely damaged in the March 16 fire. The new heater is not expected to arrive for a month, the sources said.

Exxon attempted to partially restart HU 9 in April, but according to the sources, operating one processing train on the unit was not possible.

The company also canceled plans to operate FCCU 2 without HU 9. Without HU 9 removing sulfur from the gasoline produced by FCCU 2, the gasoline will not be in specification for sale, the sources said.

As MRC wrote previously, in October 2017, ExxonMobil Chemical Company commenced production on the first of two new 650,000 tons-per-year high-performance polyethylene (PE) lines at its plastics plant in Mont Belvieu, Texas. The full project, part of the company’s multi-billion dollar expansion project in the Baytown area and ExxonMobil’s broader Growing the Gulf expansion initiative, will increase the plant’s polyethylene capacity by approximately 1.3 million tons per year.

ExxonMobil is the largest non-government owned company in the energy industry and produces about 3% of the world's oil and about 2% of the world's energy.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Celanese Corporation, a global chemical and specialty materials company, has announced that its subsidiary, Celanese US Holdings LLC, has completed a registered offering of USD500 million of US dollar-denominated Senior Notes due in 2024, said the producer in its press release.

The company simultaneously entered into a cross-currency swap to effectively convert the Notes into a euro-denominated borrowing.

The net borrowing rate to the company will be 1.03%, comprised of the 3.52% yield on the Notes, minus the impact of the currency swap. Proceeds from the Notes will be used to refinance existing shorter term euro-denominated debt. The Notes are guaranteed on a senior unsecured basis by the company and certain Celanese domestic subsidiaries, similar to prior issuances.

"This deal is another transaction that will extend our debt maturity profile, while at the same time reducing our interest expense. The consistent improvement in our business performance is reflected in an improved credit profile and credit rating, allowing us to extend our debt maturities at lower borrowing costs," said Scott Richardson, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.

As MRC reported earlier, Celanese Corporation has increased May list and off-list selling prices for Vinyl Acetate Monomer (VAM) sold in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia Outside China (AOC). The price increases below were effective for orders shipped on or after 24 April, 2019, or as contracts otherwise allow, and are incremental to any previously announced increases. Thus, VAM prices rose, as follows:

- by EUR100/mt - for Europe, the Middle East & Africa;
- by USD50/mt - for AOC.

Besides, Celanese increased its prices of emulsion polymers by USD25/mt for AOC and prices of acetic anhydride by EUR30/mt for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Celanese Corporation is a global technology leader in the production of differentiated chemistry solutions and specialty materials used in most major industries and consumer applications. Based in Dallas, Celanese employs approximately 7,700 employees worldwide and had 2018 net sales of USD7.2 billion.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- A magnitude 8 earthquake killed one person, destroyed dozens of homes and disrupted some oil operations as it rocked Peru early on Sunday, authorities said, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The quake - the biggest to hit Peru since 2007 - was felt across the country and in neighboring Ecuador and Colombia after striking the sparsely-populated region of Loreto in Peru’s northern Amazon.

Peruvian President Martin Vizcarra said the hardest hit areas were the towns of Yurimaguas and Tarapoto. “In reality, it’s affected all of the Peruvian jungle,” Vizcarra told journalists in broadcast comments as he surveyed the damage in Yurimaguas.

A 48-year-old man was killed in the region of Cajamarca after a boulder struck his home, emergency officials said. Peru’s National Emergency Center (COEN) said there were at least 11 people injured and more than 50 homes destroyed. Several schools, churches, hospitals and clinics were also damaged.

State-owned oil company Petroperu said the quake created a “minor” leak in a pipe at its Talara refinery on the Pacific coast that it said it has since controlled. It also suspended oil pumping at its Station 1 facility in Loreto in order to evaluate damage it detected there, it said in a statement.

A spokeswoman for Canadian oil company Frontera Energy, which operates Peru’s largest oil block in of Loreto, said there were no damages to its installations.

TV images showed large fissures in a highway in Cajamarca and piles of mud and debris that had swept onto other roads.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Poland’s second-biggest oil refiner Lotos is looking to buy upstream assets to boost its own oil production, a strategy made all the more important given recent problems with supplies from Russia, reported Reuters with reference to the company's deputy head of investment.

Most of the crude refined at Lotos’s refinery in the northern Polish city of Gdansk comes from Russia via the Druzhba pipeline, but flows via Druzhba were suspended last month due to contamination, sending shockwaves through global oil markets.

Lotos and its bigger rival PKN Orlen have said that their refineries are working normally thanks to supplies via sea and oil reserves. However, France’s Total suspended some units at its Leuna refinery in Germany for technical checks.

“We take advantage from our location at the seaside. We intensively use supplies by sea from Primorsk (in Russia) - this is the main element of our actions in this situation. We also use (Poland’s) mandatory oil reserves, but to a small extent,” Patryk Demski told Reuters on the sidelines of a conference in Katowice this week.

Lotos is expected to merge with Orlen under a government plan to create a bigger player capable of competing on international markets, although the plan needs EU approval and is not imminent.

The suspension of oil flows would not have a significant impact on Lotos’s second-quarter results, as margins at its refinery have not fallen drastically, he said.

The disruption caused by the contaminated Russian oil makes Lotos’s plans to acquire Norwegian oil assets and reduce its reliance on Russia all the more important, Demski said.

"The necessity to stop oil supplies from Russia confirms the legitimacy of our acquisition plans, which could help us increase our own upstream (business)... our continuous observation of what is happening in the market as well as the project of Norwegian assets acquisitions are an important element of building the diversification of our supply portfolio," Demski said.

Oil majors, including Exxon Mobil, BP and Shell, have scaled down their presence in Norway by selling or merging their assets in the mature region to focus on new growth opportunities elsewhere.

Lotos has been looking for acquisitions in upstream for years.

"We are looking at the oil majors’ exit strategy from the Norwegian Continental Shelf and we are considering potential acquisitions," Demski said, adding that Lotos is more interested in buying a structured part of a company’s upstream assets rather than a single field.

"All the time we are intensely looking around on the market and 50,000 barrels of daily output is a feasible goal for us," he said.

As MRC informed before, in November 2017, Lotos got its first shipment of crude oil from the United States on Thursday, part of its wider plan to diversify oil supplies and reduce reliance on Russian deliveries. State-run Lotos, like bigger rival PKN Orlen, refines mostly Russian oil but is aiming to diversify its supplies. As of late 2017, around 25% of the oil it refines comes from sources other than Russia.
MRC