Australia Pacific LNG Processing Pty Limited (the Issuer), a wholly owned subsidiary of S&C client Australia Pacific LNG Pty Limited (APLNG), completed a $1.4 billion private placement pursuant to Section 4(a)(2)/Regulation D. The proceeds of the notes were used to prepay a portion of the Issuer’s existing project financing provided by The Export-Import Bank of China (C-EXIM).
APLNG is a joint venture among ConocoPhillips, Origin Energy Limited and Sinopec International Petroleum Exploration and Production Corporation. APLNG is an unconventional gas-to-LNG project in Australia, and consists of both an upstream operation that produces coal seam gas, and a downstream operation that converts this coal seam gas to LNG. The Issuer operates the downstream business through its LNG plant, located on Curtis Island near Queensland, Australia, which consists of two liquefaction trains with a total nameplate design capacity of 9.0 million metric tonnes per annum. The Issuer supplies customers in China and Japan with LNG from its export facility, and has loaded in excess of 250 cargoes since the start of operations.
This most recent engagement marks a continuation of S&C’s relationship with APLNG. S&C previously represented APLNG in securing the Issuer’s initial project finance debt of $8.5 billion provided by export credit agencies (the Export-Import Bank of the United States and C-EXIM) and a syndicate of commercial banks. Since the initial project financing, S&C has provided ongoing advice to APLNG.
The S&C team was led by Inosi Nyatta, Jamieson Logie, Waldo Jones and Jonathon Hannah, along with Suzanne Marton and Chiyel Hayles. Max Birke, along with Wolfram von Frankenberg and Philipp Hartmann advised on German law matters. Jeffrey Hochberg, Saul Brander and Jennifer Leaphart advised on tax matters.