Liquefied natural gas company MidOcean, backed by EIG and Saudi Aramco, has agreed to buy a fifth of the Petronas venture that holds a 25 per cent stake in Shell-led LNG Canada, MidOcean said on Tuesday.
The deal also includes a fifth of Malaysian state energy group Petronas's Canadian upstream assets in the Montney shale gas region that feeds into LNG Canada. MidOcean declined to comment on the price of the transaction, but a person familiar with the situation put it at a little more than $3 billion.
LNG Canada shipped its first cargo in June, opening the first direct route for LNG from North America's Pacific coast to a huge market of buyers in Asia.
LNG Canada has a supply cost advantage because prices for Canadian natural gas consistently trade at a discount to the US Henry Hub benchmark and in the past week have dropped into record-low negative territory.
Once at full capacity, LNG Canada is set to export 14 million tonnes a year. The owners are working on plans to double the project's capacity.
Shell owns 40 per centof LNG Canada, PetroChina 15 per cent, Mitsubishi 15 per cent and Korean Gas Corporation five per cent. LNG Canada cost about CA$40 billion ($29 billion) to construct, the Canadian Government has said.
MidOcean is private equity firm EIG's LNG investment vehicle, led by former Shell gas and LNG executive De la Rey Venter.
MidOcean, capacity of which will be about 2.7 million tonnes of LNG a year once the deal closes, is looking to buy further price-advantaged LNG assets in the Asia-Pacific region, Venter told Reuters.
Saudi Aramco, which is seeking to strengthen its position in the LNG market, and Mitsubishi both bought into MidOcean in the past couple years.
MidOcean owns stakes in LNG projects in Australia and Peru and is in talks to join the Lake Charles LNG project in the Gulf of Mexico, MidOcean's website says.
Petronas declined to comment on the price of the deal. A Petronas release on the transaction said it paves the way for potential future collaboration with MidOcean.
(Reporting by Shadia Nasralla Editing by Jon Boyle and David Goodman)
