Cheniere Energy seeks $2.8bn to refinance Sabine Pass facility and pipeline in US

Cheniere Energy Partners is seeking to borrow about $2.8bn from 13 financial institutions to refinance its Sabine Pass liquefied natural gas import facility and a pipeline in the US.

The company will use the proceeds to prepay the $400m senior secured term loan at Cheniere Creole Trail Pipeline (CCTP), redeem or repay the $1.7bn senior secured notes due in 2016 and the $420m senior secured notes due in 2020 issued by Sabine Pass LNG (SPLNG).

SPLNG and CCTP are completely owned by Cheniere Partners.

The institutions include: the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, ABN AMRO Capital USA, Société Générale, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, New York Branch, Intesa Sanpaolo, JPMorgan Chase Bank, Mizuho Bank, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking, Morgan Stanley Senior Funding, Bank of America, Credit Suisse, HSBC Bank USA, and Commonwealth Bank of Australia.

Cheniere Partners chairman of the board and interim CEO Neal Shear said: "Cheniere Partners is pleased to have the continued support of its key relationship banks for this refinancing.

"Upon closing of this transaction and after subsequent repayment of our outstanding CCTP and SPLNG obligations, the earliest debt maturity at Cheniere Partners will be in 2020."

The company owns 100% of the Sabine Pass LNG terminal located on over 1,000 acres of land along the Sabine Pass River on the border between Texas and Louisiana, in Cameron Parish, Louisiana.

The terminal includes existing infrastructure of five 16.9 billion cubic feet equivalent (Bcfe) LNG storage tanks, two docks and vaporisers.

Cheniere also owns a 94-mile pipeline that interconnects the Sabine Pass LNG terminal with various large interstate pipelines.

The company, through its subsidiary, Sabine Pass Liquefaction (SPL), is developing and constructing natural gas liquefaction facilities at the Sabine Pass LNG terminal.

It is also planning to construct over time up to six liquefaction trains, which are in various stages of development.

Each train is expected to have a nominal production capacity of about 4.5 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) of LNG.