New Fortress closes Brazil plant sale and will spend funds on LNG and keep control of ‘Golar Nanook’ FSRU
New Fortress Energy Inc., the expanding LNG terminals, production, shipping and power assets owner, has closed the sale of a power plant in northeast Brazil and said the proceeds would go to LNG projects.
NFE said that along with its joint venture partner Ebrasil Energia the companies had concluded the sell off of the Centrais Elétricas de Sergipe (CELSE) Power Plant to Brazilian power company Eneva S.A.
Under the deal, NFE explained that Eneva had acquired 100 percent of the shares of Centrais Elétricas de Sergipe Participações SA, the NFE-Ebrasil joint venture that had held the equity interests of the CELSE Power Plant, and 100 percent of the shares of Centrais Elétricas Barra dos Coqueiros SA which owns 1.7 gigawatts of expansion rights adjacent to the CELSE Power Plant.
“The closing of this transaction further deleverages and simplifies our capital structure and marks another significant step toward our goal of an investment-grade credit rating,” said Wes Edens, Chairman and Chief Executive of NFE.
Redeploying capital
“We are pleased to redeploy these proceeds toward the capital needs of our ‘Fast LNG’ program and downstream LNG projects worldwide, internally funding our strategic growth initiatives to serve our customers’ needs amid a structurally short global LNG market,” stated Edens.
A portion of the proceeds from the sale was used to pay off the entire outstanding balance of the fully retire Standby Guarantee and Credit Facility Agreement with GE Capital EFS Financing Inc., while Eneva will assume the outstanding debt obligations of CELSE.
Energos Infrastructure, a joint venture established between New York-based asset management firm Apollo and NFE, will continue to operate the “Golar Nanook”, a floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU) that remains chartered to CELSE for use at the CELSE Power Plant for more than 20 years.
NFE’s latest priority activities are related to its “Fast LNG” program for LNG production in the Gulf of Mexico and at other locations.
The US company will produce the LNG using its “Fast LNG” platforms, some of which will be built at the new Kiewit Offshore Services shipyard near Corpus Christi in Texas.
NFE’s “Fast LNG” pairs modular, midsize liquefaction technology with jack-up rigs or similar floating infrastructure to enable a much lower cost and faster deployment schedule than floating liquefaction vessels.
Investor day
The US company is additionally involved in other FLNG ventures, including one offshore Louisiana and another offshore the Republic of Congo in West Africa.
NFE is planning an investor day at the Kiewit yard to explain its US Gulf Coast FLNG ambitions.
The company has chosen Kansas City-based LNG construction company Kiewit as its partner for the event planned for 10:00 am Central Time on November 22.
CEO Edens has said he expected to achieve mechanical completion of the first FLNG unit in March 2023 and deploy it by mid-year, with additional units to follow soon afterwards.
