Norway: DnB NOR in Negotiations to Fund LNG Tanker Orders

Norway’s biggest bank, DnB NOR is in talks on lending between $3.5 billion and $4 billion in the second half of this year to finance orders for new liquefied natural gas (LNG) vessels, it said on Wednesday.

“We are working on 5-6 LNG financing projects with various different, mostly European, owners…the bank debt on these deals is between $3.5 and $4 billon,“ DnB NOR’s head of shipping, Harald Serck-Hansen, told Reuters in a telephone interview.

If the deals are agreed, LNG financing will account for up to a quarter of the bank’s new shipping business generated in the second half of 2011, Serck-Hansen said.

The rash of new LNG tanker orders over the past 3-6 months marks a reawakening of investment appetite following years of poor demand, although the window of opportunity is narrowing, he added

(guardian)