South Korea’s major government-run banks and commercial banks, including the Korea Development Bank, the Export-Import Bank of Korea, Kookmin Bank, and Woori Bank, are planning to provide multi-million-dollar loans for Hanwha Group’s 24 trillion won (US$17.71 billion) investment in a U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) project.
According to financial sources on Oct. 18, major domestic banks are set to participate as lead banks in NextDecade’s Texas Rio Grande Terminal project. The lead bank representative is Japan’s investment bank, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG), and in addition to domestic banks, global financial institutions such as Mizuho Bank, JP Morgan, HSBC, RBC, and others are also involved.
IBK will execute loans of US$100 million, while Woori Bank will provide US$45 million for the project. These banks have completed internal approvals for the financial agreement and submitted a letter of commitment (LOC) to MUFG’s New York branch, the lead bank representative. The agreement is expected to be finalized by the end of October. Although the KDB and KB Kookmin Bank have not disclosed the investment amounts, it is reported that they will extend loans similar in scale to those of IBK and Woori Bank. All four financial institutions will collectively contribute tens of millions of dollars in funding to this project.
The Rio Grande LNG Terminal project involves the construction and operation of an LNG export terminal with an annual capacity of 27 million tons in the Port of Brownsville. The project cost amounts to US$17.4 billion, out of which US$11.8 billion is sourced through syndicated loans. A syndicated loan is a group loan in which multiple financial institutions provide a certain amount of funds under the same terms and conditions.
The project’s owner, NextDecade, has HGC NEXT INV LLC, an affiliate of Hanwha Impact, as one of its three major shareholders. Hanwha Impact is a subsidiary of Hanwha Energy, a company with 100 percent ownership by three sons of Kim Seung-youn, chairman of Hanwha Group, including Kim Dong-kwan, vice chairman of Hanwha Group. HGC NEXT INV LLC holds a 9.7 percent stake in NextDecade. Hanwha Group invested in NextDecade in 2018 to expand its LNG business as part of its strategic focus on the hydrogen economy.