Umbrella Agreement for Africa’s first deepwater FLNG project signed
The Republic of Equatorial Guinea, Ophir Holdings & Ventures Ltd, a subsidiary of Ophir Energy (“Ophir”), OneLNG SA and La Compañía Nacional De Petróleos De Guinea Ecuatorial (“GEPetrol”) have signed a detailed Umbrella Agreement (“UA”) that establishes the full legal and fiscal framework for the Fortuna FLNG Project, Africa’s first deepwater FLNG project.
The UA reconfirms the participation rights of GEPetrol as partners for 20% of the upstream portion of the project, and for a future potential participation of up to 30% ownership of the midstream FLNG vessel by the Republic of Equatorial Guinea or a designated State company. These participations create alignment with the EG Government throughout the project value chain from upstream through to LNG marketing. Signing the UA was one of the key milestones to be delivered ahead of Final Investment Decision (“FID”).
The Fortuna FLNG Project FID is on schedule for mid-2017 with first gas expected in mid-2020.
The execution of the UA completes one of the four key milestones required for FID. The other three milestones are: (i) the award of construction contracts for the upstream and midstream vessel, (ii) the completion of the project finance facility and (iii) a decision on the amount of gas to be termed at FID and signature of resulting LNG SPAs.
With respect to these milestones:
The impending award of construction contracts is well progressed and on schedule.
Term sheets have been agreed with a consortium of China-based lenders. The counter-parties to the financing have now entered into final documentation stage.
The Fortuna partners will decide in the coming weeks the amount of the expected 2.5MMTPA to put under contract at FID from the several offtake options available.
As previously announced the expected total capital expenditure for the integrated project is approximately $2 billion to reach first gas. Approximately $1.2 billion is expected to be debt financed, with full drawdown by the start of commercial operations.