OMAN - The Financing.

With such credit worthy clients and partners and with Citigroup acting at its financial adviser, also thanks to a well-structured system, QLNG in late March 2005 got a $688m loan at very competitive rates from 13 international banks through seven mandated lead arrangers (MLAs): Banca Intesa, Calyon, Gulf Int'l Bank, ING Bank, Mizuho Financial Group, the Royal Bank of Scotland and Standard Chartered Bank. Some of these banks and others financed the tankers' orders made by OSC and its various partners at equally attractive rates. OLNG used its credit worthiness in the same way as it refinanced debt for its two trains.

At the March 30, 2005 signing ceremony for the $688m QLNG loan involving 13 banks, Roger Warby, the Paris-based director of project finance for Calyon, one of the seven MLAs, told reporters it was a "golden opportunity for us to sign a deal for such a prestigious financing project in the Middle East". He said Calyon attached great importance to the fast-developing energy-rich region, Oman in particular which was busy liberalising and diversifying its economy. Warby said: "The deal is bound to produce results". Oman's National Economy Minister Ahmad ibn Abdul Nabi al-Macki, who signed the agreement along with Oil and Gas Minister Dr. Muhammad al-Rumhy, called it another major step forward in integrating Oman with the world economy.