Exclusive-Temasek to finalise deal with Shell for Pavilion Energy LNG asset sale, sources say

By Florence Tan, Jonathan Saul and Yantoultra Ngui

SINGAPORE/LONDON (Reuters) -Singapore's Temasek Holdings is finalising the sale of some assets from liquefied natural gas (LNG) trading firm Pavilion Energy to Shell with a deal set to be completed in the coming days, two sources with knowledge of the matter said.

The deal will provide Shell, already the world's top LNG trader, with access to gas markets in Europe and Singapore as it aggressively expands its LNG footprint after raking in billions of profits last year.

The deal's value will be in the hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars, one of the sources said. That would be below what Temasek had originally sought from the sale.

Reuters reported in April that Shell and Saudi Aramco had been in advanced talks to buy the assets from Temasek which had sought to fetch more than $2 billion from the deal.

The sources declined to be identified as they were not authorised to speak with media.

Temasek, Pavilion Energy and Shell declined to comment.

The deal comes months after Temasek put the Singapore-based trader up for sale after Pavilion Energy turned in a profit in the year to March 2023 on robust LNG prices in the wake of the Ukraine war.

Shell has been supplying a quarter of Singapore's natural gas needs and the deal will make it the biggest supplier to the city state.

However, the Pavilion Energy asset sale will exclude Gas Supply Pte Ltd, which has a licence to import natural gas by pipeline from Indonesia, the sources said, due to energy security concerns.

Temasek set up Pavilion Energy a decade ago to focus on LNG-related investments.

Pavilion Energy invested about $1.3 billion in three gas blocks in Tanzania in 2013 and gained access to Europe with its 2019 purchase of Iberdrola's LNG assets, including regasification capacity in the UK and Spain.

In Europe, Pavilion Energy imports about a tenth of LNG volumes in Spain, which has become a significant gas supplier in Europe by re-exporting LNG to countries such as Italy, as Russia's invasion of Ukraine prompted countries to reduce their reliance on Russian gas.

In Singapore, Pavilion Energy is one of four firms appointed by Energy Market Authority to import LNG. It supplies one-third of the city state's power and industrial gas demand with LNG and piped natural gas, according to its website.

It also supplies LNG to ships in Singapore, the world's top bunkering port.

"Pavilion's positions in both the Atlantic and Pacific, alongside LNG bunkering, fit nicely within Shell's existing portfolio and LNG market growth ambitions," said Saul Kavonic, an energy analyst at MST Marquee.

The unlisted company posted profit after tax of $438 million for the year to March 2023, reversing a year earlier loss of $666 million, while revenue rose 38% to $9.09 billion, according to Temasek's website.

It carried shareholder equity value of $3.63 billion as of March 2023, Temasek's website showed.

(Reporting by Florence Tan and Yantoultra Ngui in Singapore, Jonathan Saul and Marwa Rashad in LondonEditing by Shri Navaratnam)