Milbank LLP represented Blackstone Credit in its acquisition of 49% ownership interest in Elba Liquefaction Company, a joint venture entity of the Elba Island LNG facility. Kinder Morgan (NYSE: KMI) will remain as the operator and retain its 51% ownership of Elba Liquefaction Company.
The Elba Liquefaction Company is an LNG located near Savannah, Georgia. ELC began full commercial operations in August 2020 and is comprised of 10 Movable Modular Liquefaction Units with a nameplate capacity of 2.5 million tons per annum of liquified natural gas. ELC generates stable cash flow under 30-year contracts with investment-grade counterparties, providing long-duration income to its owners. Blackstone Credit is one of the world's largest credit-focused asset managers, with $230 billion in AUM.
Milbank advised on both corporate and finance aspects of the deal. The Corporate deal team was led by New York Corporate partners John Franchini and Aaron Stine with special counsel John Garces and associates Ross Shepard, Bianca Prikazsky, Frank Pensabene, Andrew Yu, Matthew Koch and Christina Wing.
“The completion of this transaction for Blackstone Credit further underscores the ability for creative investors to complete acquisitions of interests in infrastructure or infrastructure-like assets using innovative debt and equity financing structures,” said Milbank Corporate partner John Franchini.
The Milbank team that advised on the financing of the deal was led by Project, Energy & Infrastructure Finance partner Dan Michalchuk and special counsels Timothy Fitzpatrick and Sean O’Neill with support from partners Dan Bartfeld and Mike Duff, and associates Anya Andreeva, Monica Borda-Olarte, Mae Ji, Sofia Duclaud, Chloe Kim, Oscar Campos and Yuman Xu.
“Our global team continues to be extremely active throughout the LNG value chain where we have the lead legal role on projects ranging from export terminals in North America to LNG transport vessels, FSRUs and land-based receiving terminals (including LNG-to-Power projects),” said Dan Bartfeld, practice group leader of the firm’s Global Project, Energy and Infrastructure Finance Group. “Because of the global focus on energy security, we think that the LNG-focused development, financing and M&A activity globally will continue to be very strong in the coming years.”
Advice was also provided by Tax partner Max Goodman and associate Archan Hazra; Environmental partner Matt Ahrens and associate Allison Soto; Regulatory partner Dara Panahy, special counsel Bijan Ganji, associates Sean Heiden, Pinky Mehta and Chad Richards and regulatory advisor Jim Liles; Benefits and Compensation partner Joel Krasnow and special counsel James Beebe; and Litigation associate Jonathan Ohring.
