World Bank Funds Colombia LNG Plant Amid Regional Boom
By Isis Almeida Jul 14, 2014 12:22 PM ET
COLUMBIA GETS A LNG PLANT!!!!
NOT IAHL
WOW A FLOATING PLANT , WONDER HOW THE NATALY PROJECT IS GOING TO COMPETE, HAHAHAHAHA, But good times are coming....... OMG please stop the BS
The World Bank’s private lending arm will help finance a $300 million liquefied natural gas export project in Colombia as demand for the super-chilled fuel in Latin America is forecast to double over the next decade.
The International Finance Corp. is leading a $240 million debt financing for the world’s first floating liquefaction plant to start operating in Colombia by mid-next year, Lance Crist, the IFC’s global head of oil and gas, said by telephone on July 9. The IFC will invest $75 million in the plant and the balance will be provided by other lenders in transactions expected to close “in the next several weeks,” he said.
Transport and power generation are boosting energy demand in Central America, where spending on petroleum imports more than tripled in 2013 from 2000, according to the Institute of the Americas. The Colombian plant is part of a $2 billion investment in energy projects that the IFC will back for Central America and the Caribbean basin over the next year, Crist said.
“The beauty of this is that it will basically enable Colombia to take advantage of some of its stranded gas and supply it to regional markets,” he said. “In the near term, they will be selling gas to the international market, but now that this kind of supply is available, you will start to see regasification units being built in the Caribbean.”
$500 Million
The Colombian plant, which will produce 500,000 metric tons of LNG a year, is a venture between Pacific Rubiales Energy Corp. (PRE), the nation’s largest independent oil and gas exploration and production company, and Belgium’s Exmar NV (EXM), an LNG and LPG carrier owner in Antwerp. Peter Volk, a spokesman for Toronto-listed Pacific Rubiales, confirmed the company is in talks to receive investment from the IFC when reached by telephone today.