LNG Industry: Japan Top LNG Lender

20 Apr 2015: “Poten & Partners has announced that Japanese banks have topped its list of 2015 LNG project finance lenders. According to its April 2015 ‘Poten LNG Opinion’ column, Japanese lenders occupied five of the top ten slots, with MUFG, Mizuho and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. the top three lenders. ING of the Netherlands was the fourth biggest lender, Societe Generale was fifth and the UK’s HSBC came in at sixth. Poten & Partners said that Japanese banks provided 43% of total lending to LNG projects in 2014 (over US$5 billion). However, this amount increases by US$6 billion once dire ct lending from the country’s export credit agency (ECA), the Japanese Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) is included. Poten & Partners said: ‘The strong support for the US projects from Japanese financiers is due to the considerable presence of the country’s companies as equity partners and offtakers/tolling capacity holders and construction contractors on the US schemes.’ European banks contributed a total of US4.8 billion to LNG project financing last year. Non-Japanese Asian banks, which included lenders from Australia, Singapore, South Korea and China, provided US$880 million, while only US$780 million came from US lenders, although the US did host the two biggest project financings of last year. US$510 million was offered by Canadian lenders.”