Santos on Friday confirmed its Gladstone joint venture had committed to sell 3.5 million tones a year for 20 years to Korea Gas, all but selling out projected production from the project’s first two trains, or processing lines.
Santos will, as part of the deal, sell Kogas and its existing Gladstone partner, Total of France, a 15 per cent equity stake in the project for $655 million.
The deal ensure Gladstone will be the second coal seam gas-fed LNG project to be approved for development, behind BG Group’s $US15 billion Queensland Curtis project approved in October.
Combined with an earlier agreement to sell 3.5 million tones a year of LNG to Malaysian giant Petronas, the project has now secured buyers for LNG worth about $US120 billion. Santos and its partners plan to approve the development, rather than a single-train project, with a final investment decision delayed by a month until the end of January.
The second train is set to improve Gladstone’s economics by leveraging off infrastructure built to support the first train.
Santos also announced it would shore up its finances for the project’s construction through a $500 million placement at $12.55 – a 1.2 per cent discount to its average share price the past week.
Santos chief executive David Knox said Gladstone was now “well and truly ready to go”.
“We’ve underpinned a two train project, that’s the absolute key thing we’ve done today,” Mr Knox said from Seoul on Friday.
“We’ve got a very strong set of partners, we’ve got 7 million tones of LNG sold, and we’ve moved the project towards ( a final investment decision) in January, which allows us to delivert his. That’s a whole new investment.”
Santos provided new detail about Gladstone’s projected capital costs, and the projects $US16 billion forecast budget will come in slightly below analysts’ expectations.
That figure includes $US2 billion in contingencies, with much of the project’s cost locked into fixed price contracts.
The company said it expected the overall rate of return from Gladstone to be between 11 and 14 per cent.
Macquarie research analyst Adrian Wood said Kogas would make a “fantastic” addition to Gladstone.
“Without Kogas they were looking to sanction one train now and one later.” Mr Wood said.
“That would have meant an awkward conversation with shareholders about raising money for a second train they hadn’t yet committed to, but would also have exposed what are some fairly marginal economics on the first train as a stand-alone project. Now with Kogas in we’re looking at a two-train project, and that maddively de-risks the whole thing,” He said.
Deutsche Bank advised Santos on the Kogas transaction, while JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley will carry out the placement.
On top of Santo’s equity stake sales, Petronas will sell another 7.5 per cent share of Gladstone to Kogas.
That will leave the joint venture consisting of Santos with 30 per cent, and Kogas 15 per cent.
The project’s nameplate capacity will also increase from 7.2 million tones a year to 7.8 million tones.
Santos shares were at $12.97 before they entered a trading halt on Friday.
Report by Paul Garvey
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