Financiers for the BP-operated project reportedly include the Japan Bank for International Cooperation, a Chinese bank consortium and the Asian Development Bank, which issued a press release Tuesday confirming it had signed a $350 million loan to help develop the project.
Last year, BP said it was looking to source around $3.4 billion in finance for the project, according to Reuters, while the total cost of developing the project, including upstream developments and two LNG trains, has previously been put at around $5.5 billion.
Tangguh is expected to produce 7.6 million tonnes of LNG per year with production set to begin in the fourth quarter of 2008 while sales contracts with China, Mexico and South Korea have already been signed.
Chinese state-owned energy company CNOOC, which has a 17% stake in the project, has signed up for 2.6Mt per year for 25 years while South Korea’s Posco and K-Power have signed up for 600,000t and Mexico’s Sempra Energy has signed up for 3.7Mt.
BPMigas chief Kardaya Warnika told Reuters a formal decision from the Indonesian Government with regards to the price of LNG to be supplied to CNOOC, China’s third-largest oil company, was yet to be made. BPMigas is Indonesia’s oil and gas regulator.
Last month, Warnika reportedly said the Government had agreed to raise the price of LNG sold to CNOOC to an oil equivalent of $38 a barrel, up from the previous $25/bbl level.
Other equity partners in the Tangguh project include several Japanese firms such as Mitsubishi, Inpex, Sumitomo and Kanematsu.
Tangguh will source gas from the Wiriagar, Muturi and Berau blocks, which together have combined reserves of 14.4 trillion cubic feet of gas. BP is the operator of the three blocks.