Tellurian explores sale of upstream business to finance Driftwood LNG
Feb 6 (Reuters) - Tellurian is exploring the sale of its Haynesville upstream business in East Texas and Louisiana, the liquefied natural gas (LNG) firm said on Tuesday, as it looks to raise capital for its Driftwood LNG project.
The company has been trying to develop a 27.6 million metric-tons-per-annum LNG plant in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and earlier said it sought help with balance sheet management and commercial structures.
“By unlocking the full value of these high-quality assets, we aim to substantially reduce our debt, further reduce our general and administrative expenses, and provide additional cash, enabling us to develop Driftwood LNG,” CEO Octávio Simões said.
Tellurian is one of a few companies that has all of its approvals for the production and export of LNG from countries not covered by U.S. free trade deals. It has not been able to attract the commercial support for the Driftwood project and is yet to give the financial green light to the project.
The Haynesville asset could be worth $365 million, investment banker Roth MKM said in a note on Tuesday.
U.S. natural gas prices have fallen significantly from 2022 levels and traded Tuesday at about $2 per thousand cubic feet, down from an average of $6.50 per thousand cubic feet for 2022.
Tellurian reported third-quarter 2023 production of 19.5 billion cubic feet equivalent, and upstream segment results generated adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of $18.3 million and an annualized EBITDA of $73.2 million.
Tellurian ousted its chairman and co-founder, Charif Souki, late last year after auditors raised doubts about the company’s ability to cover future expenses.
At an investor presentation last year, the company had said it could sell the first six months’ worth of its LNG output to help finance the Driftwood project.
The company said it has asked its financial advisor, Lazard, to explore opportunities for the sale.
U.S. oil major Chevron in recent days separately launched a sale of around 71,000 net acres concentrated in East Texas and producing 48 million cubic feet equivalent of natural gas per day, according to documents seen by Reuters.
The developed portion of Chevron’s acreage is valued at $140 million at current commodity prices, one document showed. Chevron did not comment on the expected valuation from a sale.
Reuters reported in November that Chevron was planning a sale of these assets.
(Reporting by Tanay Dhumal in Bengaluru; Curtis Williams in Houston and Shariq Khan in New YorkEditing by Shailesh Kuber, Mark Potter and Matthew Lewis)
Related Knowledge Center: Liquefied natural gas
Driven by plentiful natural gas produced from shale plays, the United States began exporting liquefied natural gas in 2016 when the Sabine Pass terminal in Louisiana opened and shipped its first cargo. Since then, additional capacity, or trains, have been added to Sabine Pass, and terminals have become operational in Cameron Parish, La.; Hackberry, La.; Cove Point, Md.; and Corpus Christi, Texas. The Energy Information Administration projects that U.S. LNG export capacity will reach 8.9 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) by the end of 2019, making it the third largest in the world, behind Australia and Qatar. The tariff war with China has the potential to impact some final investment decisions for additional terminals in the coming months.