Switzerland-based energy trader MET Group has signed a new borrowing base facility to support its LNG and natural gas activities in Europe and beyond.
The company said in a statement on Monday the 1.1 billion euros ($1.19 billion) borrowing base facility (BBF) will be used for its sales and trading segment.
According to MET, the facility includes an accordion option to increase it up to a maximum of 1.7 billion euros, allowing MET to accommodate further volume growth or changes in market structure and environment.
The facility was structured and led by ING Bank as coordinator, security and facility agent, joined by Coöperatieve Rabobank, Natixis CIB, and Société Générale as active bookrunning mandated lead arrangers, and backed by a pool of 13 additional international banks, MET said.
MET said the experience in recent years “clearly demonstrated the importance of adequate, scalable and efficient funding solutions in gas, LNG, and power trading.”
“This facility, as main financing vehicle of MET’s sales and trading segment, continues to be a key pillar in MET’s funding framework particularly supporting the import of LNG, the storage and sale of natural gas in Europe and beyond,” the firm led by Benjamin Lakatos said.
MET’s LNG business
In March last year, MET signed a new 1.23 billion euros syndicated borrowing base facility to support its growing LNG and natural gas activities.
MET recently entered into a 10-year deal to buy US LNG volumes from LNG giant Shell.
According to MET, the company’s primary objective is to supply its European customers with US LNG.
Prior to this contract, MET entered in September last year into a 20-year non-binding deal with US LNG terminal developer Commonwealth LNG to buy 1 mtpa of LNG from the proposed 9.3 mtpa plant in Cameron, Louisiana.
Alongside bolstering security of supply for MET’s European portfolio, this new “flexible” LNG supply enables its diversification ambitions, allowing the company to extend its geographical scope to new regions such as Asia, MET said.
Last year, MET set up an office in Singapore as it works to expand its LNG business beyond Europe.
The company has long-term regasification capacity bookings in Germany, Croatia and Spain, and has imported into eight different countries in recent years.
This includes countries around the Mediterranean (Greece, Italy, Croatia, Spain), Northwest Europe (UK, Belgium, Germany), and the Nordic region (Finland), MET said.
In 2023, MET delivered more than 30 cargoes of LNG to Europe.
The company has capacity rights at the Croatian FSRU-based terminal and received the first LNG cargo via the Krk facility in the northern Adriatic Sea in April 2021.
In addition, MET booked regasification capacities at the FSRU-based LNG import terminal in Germany’s Lubmin, owned by Deutsche ReGas.
This FSRU is now part of the Mukran LNG import facility which includes two units.