PJSC Gazprom has secured project financing to complete construction of subsidiary OOO Gazprom Pererabotka Blagoveshchensk's (GPB) 42 billion-cu m/year grassroots Amur natural gas processing plant (GPP) under way near Svobodny in Russia’s far-east Amur region (OGJ Online, Apr. 12, 2018).
The total amount of debt financing is €11.4 billion from 22 European, Asian, and Russian banks, including 14 banks from Europe and Japan that will provide up to €3.66 billion under insurance coverage provided by Western export credit agencies for a tenor of 17 years, Gazprom said.
Financing on the part of Chinese banks is arranged by Bank of China, China Construction Bank Corp., and China Development Bank, with the latter serving as the largest lender. These financing institutions are providing a loan facility of €3.4 billion for a 15-year term.
The Russian banks—Gazprombank, Sberbank, VTB Bank, Otkritie Bank, and VEB.RF—will provide multicurrency credit lines of €1.08 billion and 170 billion rubles. The Russian Agency for Export Credit and Investment Insurance will cover about one third of the total amount.
An additional €1 billion for 15 years also will be provided on an uncovered basis.
Acting as borrower, GPB is the first Russian company to raise project financing under export credit agencies' cover for such an extended term, according to the operator.
In terms of size, this deal has no precedence in the history of Gazprom and is among the largest project financing deals in Europe over the last few years, the Russian company said.
The plant includes six production lines, with the first two lines slated for commissioning in 2021. The remaining lines will be consecutively put in operation before yearend 2024.
Currently about 54% completed, GPP is scheduled to reach full operational capacity by 2025, Gazprom said.
The Amur GPP comes as part of Gazprom’s implementation of its Eastern Gas Program (EGP) to integrate field developments, pipeline, and natural gas production centers in East Siberia and Russia’s Far East, the Amur plant will process multicomponent gas it receives from EGP’s Irkutsk and Yakutia gas production centers via the Power of Siberia gas pipeline to support Gazprom’s commitment to supply 38 billion cu m/year of Russian natural gas into China over 30 years beginning sometime in 2021 (OGJ Online, May 21, 2014).
Alongside producing about 2.5 million tpy of ethane, 1 million tpy of propane, 500,000 tpy of butane, and 200,000 tpy of pentane-hexane fraction, the Amur gas processing complex also will produce as much as 60 million-cu m/year of helium based on feedstock from the Chayandinskoye field, which together with the company’s other reserves in East Siberia, forms one of the largest helium reservoirs in the world (OGJ Online, Dec. 19, 2012).
