Novatek Completes Yamal Stake Sale to China Fund

NOVATEK on Tuesday announced the closing of a transaction to sell a 9.9 percent equity stake in the Yamal LNG project to China’s Silk Road Fund (SRF) for a payment amounting to Euro 1.09 billion ($1.2 billion). 

Following the completion of the deal, the shareholder structure Yamal LNG will be as follows: NOVATEK (50.1 percent), Total (20 percent), CNPC (20 percent) and SRF (9.9 percent). In December 2015, as part of the transaction, Novatek received a 15-year loan from SRF for the purpose of financing of the project.

The Yamal LNG project envisages the construction of an LNG plant with annual capacity of 16.5 million tons per annum based on the feedstock resources of the South-Tambeyskoye field. According to estimates, the proven and probable reserves of the South-Tambeyskoye field as of 31 December 2014 were appraised at 926 billion cubic meters of natural gas. The project is currently at the active construction stage.
 
SRF is a $40 billion medium- to long-term investment and development fund established in Beijing in December 2014. It makes outbound investment through both the acquisition of equity stakes and the provision of debt financing. The fund focuses on infrastructure, energy/resources, industrial capacity cooperation and financial cooperation that are vital to the connectivity of the Chinese economy with the rest of the world.