State-owned Qatar Petroleum has reportedly sold $12.5 billion in a jumbo four-tranche bond deal which would help fund its giant LNG expansion project.
QP tightened the spreads across all four tranches by 30 basis points (bps) after combined orders topped $41 billion, according to a report by Reuters on Wednesday.
The LNG behemoth sold $1.5 billion in a five-year portion at 50 bps over U.S. Treasuries (UST), $3.5 billion in 10-year paper at 90 bps over UST, $3.5 billion in 20-year notes at 3.15% and $4 billion in 30-year Formosa bonds at 3.3%, Reuters said in the report.
Moreover, the Formosa bonds – sold in Taiwan by foreign borrowers and denominated in currencies other than the Taiwanese dollar – and the 10-year paper attracted the most demand, over $12 billion each, the agency said.
QP confirmed this bond offering in a statement on Thursday.
Boosting LNG capacity
The move comes months after QP announced a final investment decision on its $28.75 billion North Field East project.
Moreover, capital expenditure by QP, its subsidiaries and joint ventures through 2025 is projected at 300 billion riyals ($80 billion), Reuters said in the report.
Under the North Field East project, QP will build four mega trains with a capacity of 8 million tonnes per year in the Ras Laffan complex.
This first phase of the expansion project will increase Qatar’s LNG production capacity from 77 to 110 mtpa.
QP also plans a second phase to further boost capacity to total 126 mtpa by 2027 as well as additional expansions.
The company’s unit Qatargas already operates in total fourteen LNG trains at Ras Laffan.
In addition, QP’s CEO Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi recently said that Shell, TotalEnergies, and ExxonMobil were bidding to take a stake in the company’s giant LNG expansion project.
He said QP had received offers for double the equity available to potential partners in the bidding process for the North Field East project.
QP also on Wednesday announced it had entered into a ten-year deal to supply LNG to Shell in China. This marked the fourth long-term deal the firm revealed since February this year.
