Banwo & Ighodalo and G. Elias advised on the Nigerian law aspects of the more than US$1 billion financing for the development and monetisation of the Ima non associated gas field offshore Nigeria.
Banwo & Ighodalo acted for the sponsors, TotalEnergies EP Nigeria Limited and AMNI International Petroleum Development Company Limited, while G. Elias acted for the lenders.
The financing is structured around a receivables sale arrangement linked to a 15 year Gas Sales Agreement with Nigeria LNG Limited and brings together Standard Chartered Bank, Standard Bank, First Abu Dhabi Bank, Zenith Bank, Access Bank, United Bank for Africa and GTBank.
A key feature of the transaction was the security structure. The Ima gas reservoirs and AMNI’s crude oil interests are located within the same OMLs, requiring a bespoke structure to provide the finance parties with effective security over the gas development, project rights, contractual entitlements and associated revenues without encumbering AMNI’s separate oil assets, financing arrangements or oil revenues.
The financing was structured across multiple tranches and required coordination across Nigerian, English and DIFC legal workstreams.
The Ima development has an estimated cost of US$1.108 billion and approximately 1.28 Tcf of independently confirmed gross non associated gas reserves. The field is expected to produce approximately 350 MMscf/d at plateau for at least eight years.
At plateau, Ima is expected to supply approximately 30% of the feed gas required for Nigeria LNG’s Train 7 expansion, which is expected to increase NLNG’s liquefaction capacity from 22 million tonnes per annum to 30 million tonnes per annum. First gas is targeted for 2028.
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