Chinese firm to buy 10% of T&T natural gas producer

(Trinidad Express) China Investment Corporation (CIC) has signed off on an agreement to purchase ten per cent of the shares of liquefied natural gas producer Atlantic at Point Fortin.

The deal will see the Chinese taking over the shares held by GDF Suez of France.

A mid-term agreement was signed last November, and last week the final signing took place in Port of Spain between representatives of GDF Suez and CIC, the Express learned.

The new acquisition by CIC was part of an exchange investment in Asia in which GDF Suez had relinquished its interest in Atlantic’s Train 1. GDF was one of five companies with interest in Train 1.

The transfer of shares is the fourth since the plant was established. The shares were first held by Cabot, then Tractabel and GDF Suez, a French company with investments in electricity generation and natural gas as well as renewable energy.

Atlantic supplies gas to the United States and other countries and has four trains producing some 100,000 cubic metres of liquefied natural gas per day.