Dentons is advising Hurricane Energy plc (Hurricane), the oil and gas fractured basement specialist, on its US$520 million fundraising, launched yesterday. The fundraising is one of the largest attempted by an oil company in London since 2014, when crude oil prices plummeted.

On 30 June 2017 Northwind secured approximately EUR 525,000,000 in funding for the refinancing of its 216 megawatt offshore wind farm located on the Lodewijkbank, 37km off the Belgian coast consisting of 72 wind turbines. The refinancing is financed by senior facilities provided by a syndicate of lenders, including ASN Bank, Belfius, BNP Paribas, Rabobank, ING, KBC, Natixis, Société Générale, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ and Eksportkreditt Norge.

We acted as legal counsel to Gasum in the increase of its shareholding in Skangas to 70%.

Following Gasum’s increase, the Norwegian Lyse Group will continue as a Skangas shareholder with a 30% stake. The increase in shareholding will strengthen Gasum’s position as the leading LNG provider and developer of the Nordic gas ecosystem.

Sonnedix Power Holdings Limited (together with its subsidiaries, “Sonnedix”), an independent solar energy producer that develops, builds, owns and operates photovoltaic power plants around the world, has announced the acquisition of Aloe Energy, a solar energy producer with an installed capacity of more than 67 MWp In France, from a consortium led by Ardian Infrastructure and Debiopharm Investment. Sonnedix is majority owned by institutional investors advised by J.P. Morgan Asset Management.

Setterwalls has assisted Marguerite Wind Celsius GmbH in its acquisition from Element Power and Kraftö of the wind farm project Grimsås with 13 turbines with a total effect of 117 GWh. Grimsås is situated southeast of Tranemo, Sweden. Setterwalls has also assisted in the power purchase agreement with Vattenfall and E.ON for Grimsås, service and support agreement with Siemens and civil work agreement with Svevia.

The European Court of Justice has determined that the Swedish Energy Authority's decision concerning E.ON Biofor Sverige's imports of sustainable biogas is contrary to the rules on free movement of goods in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). The court's ruling sets an important precedent for the interpretation of the Renewables Directive and the obligation on member states not to discriminate between imported sustainable biogas and domestically produced sustainable biogas.

Watson Farley & Williams (“WFW”) has advised long-standing client Vattenfall on its acquisition of UK gas and electricity supply business ISupplyEnergy.

 WFW has been advising Swedish state owned utility Vattenfall, which has invested more than £3bn into building one of the UK’s leading wind energy businesses, since 2009. Vattenfall has also recently branched out into solar PV, battery storage and business to business sales.

Ashurst advised Ophir Energy plc on its US$250 million reserve-based lending facility ("RBL") secured against the Ophir Group's producing oil and gas assets in Southeast Asia.

In addition to the initially committed US$250 million, a further US$100 million is available on an uncommitted “accordion” basis. Rothschild has acted as financial advisor to Ophir on the new RBL, which replaces Ophir’s existing RBL.

Slaughter and May advised Centrica plc on the sale of its operational Langage and South Humber Bank combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) power stations with a combined capacity of 2.3GW to a subsidiary of Energeticky a prumyslovy holding, a. s. (EPH) for £318 million in cash (subject to customary working capital and other completion adjustments).

The transaction is subject to EU merger clearance and is expected to complete during the second half of 2017.
Contacts

Corporate: Tim Pharoah (partner), James Odom (associate), Oliver Gratton (associate)

Herbert Smith Freehills has advised long-standing client Korea Gas on its participation in the US$11 billion Coral Floating LNG project in Mozambique.

KOGAS has a 10% interest in the project, which is led by Eni and also involves China National Petroleum Corporation, GALP (of Portugal) and ENH (of Mozambique).  The project marks a series of firsts:

* first floating LNG liquefaction project to be project-financed globally
* first floating LNG liquefaction project in Africa
* first LNG project for Mozambique