Japan’s Jera, one of the world’s largest buyers of liquefied natural gas (LNG), has finalized a deal signed back in October with France’s EDF under which it will take over the latter’s coal and freight trading business.
Jera Trading Singapore, a unit of Jera, aims to complete the acquisition by early April 2017.
As part of the deal, EDF will take a 33 percent stake in Jera Trading, while the Japanese company will hold the remainder of the business.
The deal will make Jera Trading one of the largest coal traders globally, with a major presence in both the Atlantic and Pacific basins and total physical coal sales of approximately 60 million tonnes per annum, LNG giant Jera said in a statement on Tuesday.
“Coal is an important part of the fuel mix in the global energy markets and the transaction considerably strengthens Jera’s competitive procurement and sales capabilities,” the company said.
Jera Trading will be managed from Singapore with an additional commercial hub in London that will run its Atlantic basin activities.
Ronan Lory, Chief Financial Officer of EDF Trading will become Managing Director of JERA Trading, while Bert van Druten, head of coal and freight trading at EDF Trading, will become head of all trading operations at JERA Trading.
Worth mentioning, Jera and EDF Trading signed a deal in May under which the Japanese company will sell up to 1.5 million tonnes of LNG to EDF Trading for delivery to European LNG terminals between June 2018 and December 2020.
Jera noted in today’s statement that the duo will further discuss developing wider collaboration platforms including LNG.
LNG World News Staff