Narrative
Full Description
Project narrative
In January 2015, the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE, Comisión Federal de Electricidad) granted Carso Energy a contract for the provision of gas transportation services through the Waha-Presidio natural gas pipeline and Waha-San Elizario natural gas pipeline, both located in the state of Texas, in the United States of America. Then, on November 17, 2015, Comanche Trail Pipeline, LLC — a special purpose vehicle and joint venture of Carso Energy Corp. (51%) equity stake, MasTec Comanche, LLC (33% equity stake) and Energy Transfer Mexicana, LLC (16% equity stake) — signed a $508.21 million syndicated debt financing package with a group of lenders for the Waha-San Elizario Natural Gas Pipeline Construction Project. The members of the syndicate reportedly included Bank of China, Bank of Tokyo, BBVA, Mizuho Bank, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, Caixabank, ING Group, Intesa San Paolo, and Banco de Sabadell. The package consisted of a $447.92 million term loan and a $60.3 million letter of credit. The debt had a tenor of construction plus 18 years. The interest rate for the term loan is LIBOR plus a variable margin, starting at 200 bps and going up to 275 bps by the end of the repayment period. The purpose of the project was to develop the Waha-San Elizario Natural Gas Pipeline, a 290 km natural gas transportation pipeline that runs from Waha field through Pecos, Reeves, Culberson, Hudspeth, and El Paso counties to the Texas-Mexico border in San Elizario, Texas, just south of El Paso, Texas. The pipeline went into service on January 30, 2017.
Staff comments
1. Lummus Consultants International was a technical adviser to the lenders, Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy was their legal adviser. Shearman & Sterling acted as legal adviser to the sponsor. 2. AidData has coded the interest rate based on the (assumed 6-month) LIBOR rate on the date the loan was signed (November 17, 2015) plus the 200 bps margin to accurately capture the interest rate at T0.