By OGJ editors
HOUSTON, Feb. 27 -- Gaz de France (GdF) and the energy and environmental services conglomerate Suez, both of Paris, have agreed to merge.
Boards of the companies have approved a friendly merger via an exchange of stock and payment of an exceptional dividend of €1.25 billion by Suez to its shareholders, forming a company with total revenue of €64 billion/year. The exchange ratio after the dividend will be 1:1, representing a premium to GdF shareholders of 3.9% as of Feb. 24, the companies said.
Both companies have growing LNG businesses.
Suez operates LNG terminals at Zeebrugge, Belgium, and Everett, Mass. Its expansion plans include a deepwater LNG terminal off Massachusetts and a Bahamas terminal with a pipeline to Florida.
At the end of 2004, it owned seven LNG carriers with combined capacity of 882,000 cu m.
At that time it also had 53 Gw of electrical generating capacity installed and under construction worldwide, 25% of it in Belgium, 31% elsewhere in Europe, 11% in North America, 20% in South America, and 13% in the rest of the world.
GdF operates LNG terminals at Fos-sur-Mer and Montoir-de-Bretagne, France, with regasification capacity totaling 15.5 billion cu m/year.
In France, it operates a gas transmission network with more than 31,000 km of pipeline, a distribution system with 170,000 km of mainlines, and storage with working gas capacity of 10 billion cu m.
It also owns interests in gas transmission networks elsewhere in Europe, mainly in Austria, Belgium, Germany, and Slovakia and in distribution networks in Germany, Italy, Hungary, Portugal, and Slovakia.
Outside Europe, GdF has a strategic partnership with Petronet LNG in India for construction of an LNG receiving terminal. It also has transmission and distribution interests in Mexico and distribution and storage interests in Quebec.
GdF holds oil and gas reserves totaling 670 million boe at yearend 2003, mostly in the North Sea and Germany.
