IFC, Excelerate Secure Financing for Bangladesh FSRU Project
The International Finance Corporation (IFC) and Excelerate Energy have secured debt financing for Bangladesh's first floating LNG import terminal, Excelerate said July 11.
The Moheshkhali project is being co-developed by the IFC and Excelerate. The $179.5mn project will be located offshore Moheshkhali island in the Bay of Bengal.
The equity for the project had been tied-in earlier with IFC coming in with a contribution of $10.8mn and Excelerate's equity amounting to $43.1mn. As lead arranger for the project, IFC helped arrange the debt financing package of $125.7mn for the LNG project, including IFC's loan of $32.8mn from its own account and the balance from CDC Group, DEG, FMO and JICA. The funding will support the timely construction and installation of the fixed infrastructure required for the project, Excelerate said.
Excelerate said that Bangladesh's first LNG import terminal will enable Petrobangla, the state-owned energy company, to increase natural gas supply in the country by up to 20%, sufficient to support up to 3,000 MW of power generation capacity. The construction of the terminal will commence in 4Q 2017 and is expected to be in service by mid-2018.
The terminal is the first fully integrated turnkey floating terminal solution whereby all services will be provided under a single contract by a single provider – Excelerate. The terminal will include the provision of one of Excelerate's existing floating storage and regasification units (FSRU), the installation of a subsea buoy system anchored offshore, and the employment of port service vessels during operation. The FSRU will have 138,000 m3 of LNG storage capacity.
Shardul Sharma