RPS’ Deal Advisory team recognised globally at Project Finance International (PFI) awards

RPS’ Deal Advisory team has taken out PFI’s Asia Pacific LNG Deal of the Year award at a ceremony in London for its project financing work on Woodside’s Pluto LNG Train 2.

The US$5.6 billion liquid natural gas project was one of the largest construction project financing transactions to close in the Australian market last year.

Deal Advisory Director, Nick Turton, says the award is fantastic recognition for the deal project team led by Merrill Lee and Henri Baz.

“It’s an honour to receive this award. It was a significant deal in terms of its size, complexity, and international interest, as well as the role it will play as part of the global energy transition.  

“As the world transitions to renewable energy, ESG is an increasingly vital component of project financing. To that end, we not only provided technical, operational, and commercial advice for the transaction, but we were also the Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) advisers for the deal.”

Located in Western Australia’s Pilbara region, Pluto Train 2 will be designed to process up to eight million tonnes of LNG per year from Woodside Energy’s planned Scarborough offshore gas field. The facility will utilise state of the art technology and equipment to lower greenhouse gas emissions.

The deal was one of the many substantial transactions RPS’ global Deal Advisory team worked on during the 2021-22 financial year – successes that saw the team achieve a number one regional ranking in Asia Pacific for technical advice on global infrastructure technology platform Infralogic.

The team continues to grow with deal advisors working across the United Kingdom, Europe, Australia and New Zealand, and Asia Pacific. The team has recently delivered several other significant mandates including:

• BP / Deep Wind Offshore (DWO) joint venture for an offshore wind concession in South Korea
• A public private partnership (PPP) for the Central West Orana Renewable Energy Zone in NSW, Australia
• Axicom telecommunications portfolio acquisition for AustralianSuper
• Bersama digital infrastructure portfolio acquisition for Macquarie Asset Management in Indonesia.