BP sews up financing for Tortue

摘要

The Senegalese head of state could announce its FID on Tortue as early as next month when in the United States. An army of lawyers is currently trying to hash out the final details of the fiscal, contractual and financial provisions for the liquefied natural gas development on the giant Tortue field that will mean Senegal and Mauritania can at last expect a final investment decision (FID) before the end of the year. The financing of the project has been no easy task ( AEI 821). This was finalised on October 23 in Dakar, when operators BP and Kosmos Energy agreed to adjust the interests of their loan to Mauritania and Senegal to 6.5% over seven years instead of 7.7% over five years. At one point, to finance Dakar and Nouakchott’s 10% stake in the project and contribution to the development work, BP and Kosmos had planned to ask future buyers of the gas to make advanced payments. Offers from Vitol and Shell, the two candidates for the LNG marketing contract, were discarded, while BP Marketing was picked to sell the gas and finance the two states’ participation for the first development phase worth $740 million. Once production gets underway, the two neighbours will be able to use income generated from their share in the project to borrow funds needed for the next phases of development. In total, BP and Kosmos' teams estimate the different phases of Tortue, which contains between 12 and 15 tcf of gas, will cost nearly $16 billion.