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US Masters
01 May 2002
Enron-related nerves have sparked a series of asset sales in the US gas industry. They have also left new owners wondering how to pay for them. Answer: master limited partnerships. By Tom Nelthorpe.
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It has the potential to be one of the few consequences of the Enron collapse to benefit structured finance lenders. While the sharper bankers and lawyers learn to wean themselves from share trust structures and, possibly, synthetic leases, balance sheet salvage operations have put a number of prize midstream gas assets onto the market. At the same time the poor state of the forward power price curves will have little effect on increased reliance upon natural gas as an energy source in the US. This means ? in theory ? pipeline and LNG expansion deals.
But integrated energy players in the US face the same difficulties in raising cash for these expansion plans as they, and their peers, do in the independent power business. Few had much interest in raising non-recourse finance here, even during the boom years for gas-fired capacity. Instead the major operators concentrated in building up large,...
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