Through its
affiliated company, Repsol International B.V., Repsol has acquired a 20% stake
in Atlantic LNG, a company promoting and exploiting the project to construct a
liquified natural gas plant in Trinidad and Tobago, and founded on July 20th
last with a company capital of 30 million dollars. Through this transaction,
Repsol becomes one of the main shareholders in the company together with Amoco
Trinidad LNG Company (34%) and British Gas Trinidad LNG Limited (26%). The other
members of the consortium are Cabot Trinidad LNG and NGC Trinidad & Tobago
LNG Ltd., both holdong a 10% stake.
The future plant will be located at
Point Fortin and will produce three million tonnes of natural gas per annum.
Start-up is programmed for March 1999 and total investment on the project is
estimated at around a billion dollars. The plant is stragetically situated to
meet the needs of both European and American markets, given the excellent
geographic location of the island in comparison with other supply
sources.
Offers for "turnkey" realization of the construction, as well as
its financing through a banking syndicate, are under study at
present.
Natural gas for the plant will come from offshore fields
discovered by Amoco in 1968 and 1994, East Mayaro and South South East Galeota,
80 and 60 km to the south-east of Trinidad.
Contracts signed between
Atlantic LNG, Enagas and Cabot LNG provide for the total sale of all the plant's
production: 60% to Cabot LNG markets in the north-east of the U.S.A. and the
other 40% to Enagas for sale in Spain.
Repsol's interest in this project
strengthens the company's "upstream" integration and underlines the growing
importance of its natural gas activity. Repsol holds 43% in Gas Natural SDG
capital equity. This is the main distributing company in Spain, in its turn
owning 91% of Enagas.
Amoco Trinidad LNG company is a subsidiary of the
North American oil and chemical company, Amoco Corporation. British Gas Trinidad
LNG is an affiliate of the U.K. company, British Gas plc. Cabot Trinidad LNG
Corporation and Cabot LNG are two divisions of the Cabot Corporation,
specialised in the oil and chemical sector, with headquarters in Boston. NGC is
a subsidiary of the Trinidad and Tobago state-owned gas company, the National
Gas Company of Trinidad and Tobago Ltd.
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