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| Barzan Gas Company financing | |
| Size | $7.25 billion |
| Date | December 13 2011 |
| Financial adviser | RBS |
| Pricing | 130bp-200bp (commercial tranche) |
| Tenor | 16 years |
| return to the Middle East & Africa Deals of the Year index | |
As credit tightened around the world, the best deals in the Middle East were those that opened new avenues for finance.
The financing behind Qatar’s $10.4 billion Barzan Gas Company is a good example. The scheme is to develop a block of offshore gas reserves and construct onshore processing facilities in Qatar.
Barzan Gas Company’s sponsors are Qatar Petroleum (with 93% of the stock) and Exxon Mobil (with 7%). Equity makes up 30% of the project cost, so the 16-year facilities from banks, export-credit agencies and other financiers total $7.25 billion. It makes this the largest project financing in the world in 2011, according to Dealogic. It is also Qatar Petroleum’s largest ever project, according to the firm.
"Banks wanting to do business in Qatar had to show support for this deal," says Meshaal Al Mahmoud, head of project financing at Qatar Petroleum.
