Ashurst has advised Korea Gas Corporation (“KOGAS”) on its acquisition of a stake in the US$16 billion Gladstone Santos LNG project (“GLNG”), which completed on 16 February 2011. KOGAS and Total have acquired a combined interest of 15% in GLNG. Ashurst also advised KOGAS on the associated 20-year LNG off-take contract, which provides for the sale by GLNG of 3.5 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) of LNG to KOGAS.

The GLNG project involves the piping of coal seam gas to a liquefaction plant at Gladstone, Queensland, Australia. The plant will produce 7.2 mtpa of LNG through two processing trains.

The Ashurst team advising KOGAS was led by Tokyo partner John McClenahan, with senior associate Arabella Dove and associate Glen McAskill in Tokyo, assisted from London by energy partner Anthony Patten with associates Joanna Kay and Emily Gunn, and from Singapore by corporate partner Keith McGuire and associate Nick Dimitriou. Blake Dawson (led by partner Rupert Lewi) advised KOGAS on Australian law aspects of the transaction.

Commenting on the transaction, John McClenahan said:

“This is a major energy deal and we are delighted to have assisted KOGAS in what we believe is the largest investment into Australia by a Korean company to date. Korean energy companies are becoming increasingly acquisitive and are increasingly looking to invest further afield, as illustrated by this deal and the recent acquisition of Dana Petroleum by Korea National Oil Corporation, on which we also advised.

Our team is currently advising a number of other Korean energy players, including Daewoo International, which was recently acquired by POSCO, on LNG and gas projects in Asia. We also recently hired in Tokyo Dan Le Fort, former Associate General Counsel at Qatar Petroleum, to further boost our energy team offering in this part of Asia.”