AOE are saying today that the project is within their funding capability.
Part of all this project restructuring is no doubt to get the clear lines of responsibility and ownership required to put project debt finance in place.
AOE had $283mm ?? at 31 Dec, and will get about $150mm from Shell on FID. They've clearly said that they"ll try to shift the pipeline capex onto a utility type investor.
Then some of the $2.1 mm is already spent I suspect, and some is ongoing capex beyond first LNG shipment I think.
So there will likely be a gap, but something closed by say a small placement and a 1 for 10 rights issue I guess.
I like the simplified structure, and I REALLY like LNGI out of the cockpit. I think the banks will too. I assume we retain the services of CBI, a pretty respectable name in LNG.
The analysts and insto's are going to have to think about this a bit more, but imo it's hard to see a negative. Plus as Hardmano pointed out, it really is in effect an (all but) FID.
EL
AOE Price at posting:
$3.44 Sentiment: LT Buy Disclosure: Held
