Ex-Im Bank Approves Nearly $3 Billion in Export Financing for U.S. Goods and Services to Australia Pacific LNG Project
May 8, 2012
(Ex-Im Bank)
WASHINGTON, D.C.: The Export-Import Bank of the
United States (Ex-Im Bank) has authorized a
$2.95 billion direct loan to support U.S.
exports to the Australia Pacific liquefied
natural gas (LNG) project. The transaction is
Ex-Im’s second-largest single-project financing
in history and is also the Bank’s first LNG
project in Australia.
The project on Curtis Island in south-central
Queensland will produce natural gas from
coal-seam wells and will have total capacity of
nine million metric tons per year. China
Petroleum and Chemical Corp. (Sinopec) and
Kansai Electric Power Co. Inc. of Japan will
purchase most of the LNG produced. China Ex-Im
Bank and commercial lenders are also providing
debt financing for the project.
Ex-Im’s financing is expected to support an
estimated 11,000 American jobs. Principal U.S.
exporters are ConocoPhillips Co. and Bechtel
International, both of Houston, Texas.
Additional exporters and suppliers include
numerous small businesses in Texas, Colorado,
Nevada, California, Oregon and Oklahoma.
“Our authorization paves the way for U.S.
companies to export equipment and services to
this major LNG project and, in so doing, to
maintain thousands of American jobs across the
country,” said Ex-Im Bank Chairman and
President Fred P. Hochberg. “This financing
also demonstrates how the United States and
China can work together for our mutual benefit
to foster trade and develop critically needed
energy resources.”
The transaction, approved by Ex-Im’s board of
directors on May 3, was announced following
Chairman Hochberg’s trip to China, where he
participated in the fourth round of the
Strategic and Economic Development Dialogue
(S&ED) with Treasury Secretary Timothy F.
Geithner and other officials. The S&ED was
held in Beijing on May 3-4.
Bechtel official Jay C. Farrar, who manages the
company’s office in Washington, D.C., cited the
importance of Ex-Im’s financing for U.S.
exporters to large international projects.
“Since 1992, Ex-Im Bank has been instrumental
in the successful awarding and completion of
projects involving Bechtel that have supported
thousands of jobs for highly skilled employees
at our company. The Bank’s financing also has
helped to maintain thousands of additional jobs
related to the supply chain for these
projects,” Farrar said. Bechtel Corp. is an
international engineering, construction and
project management company.
The Australia Pacific LNG project will involve
development of coal-seam natural-gas fields,
two gas transmission lines to a collection hub,
a natural gas liquefaction plant and an
adjacent marine shipping export terminal on
Curtis Island near the city of Gladstone.
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