Hoegh LNG said in a statement to the Oslo Stock Exchange that it has signed an agreement for the facility with DNB Bank, Nordea Bank Norge Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken and Swedbank.
The facility is 75 percent guaranteed by South Korean and Norwegian export credit agencies, it said.
"This confirms and underlines Hoegh LNG's ability to raise long-term debt financing for its FSRU projects at competitive terms. We are also very pleased with the Klaipėdos Nafta FSRU project being on schedule in all aspects for a planned start-up in the third quarter of 2014," said Hoegh LNG President and CEO Sveinung Stohle.
Hoegh LNG will lease the FSRU to Lithuania's state-controlled Klaipėdos Nafta (Klaipėda Oil), the developer of the LNG terminal project, for ten years starting in late 2014 under a contract that was signed on 2 March 2012.
South Korea's Hyundai Heavy Industries started building the FSRU in late September.
Klaipėdos Nafta said in mid-November that more than 14,000 tons of steel sheets would be cut by the end of the month and that the total amount of steel required for the structure, around 25,000 tons, would be produced by the end of the year. Previously, it had been planned that steel-cutting work would last until March 2013.
"At this stage of the construction of the vessel, it is very important that technological work is carried out according to a strict schedule, which would help to ensure that the FSRU arrives in the port of Klaipėda in the second half of 2014," Klaipėdos Nafta CEO Rokas Masiulis then said.
The lease of the FSRU, including its maintenance and operation and the crew, will cost Klaipėdos Nafta 189,000 US dollars daily (including VAT), or 689 million dollars over ten years. The contract gives the company the right to purchase the unit following the 10-year lease at a residual value that the parties agreed not to disclose.
Hoegh LNG currently operates a fleet of seven vessels, including three FSRUs and four LNG carriers. The company is headquartered in the Norwegian capital and is listed on the Oslo bourse.
