Japan’s Toshiba has completed the transfer of its LNG operations in the U.S. to a subsidiary of France’s Total. The transaction is in line with the agreement that the parties signed in June.
Under the deal, Total’s Singapore affiliate will pay $15 million for Toshiba American LNG. At the same time, the latter company will pay the former $815 million in exchange for a pledge to take over its supply commitments.
The sale will help Toshiba’s bottom line by ridding it of an asset with poor prospects. The company had hoped to use Toshiba American LNG to deliver U.S.-made fuel to Japanese utility buyers, but its plans have foundered as a result of falling gas prices.
Toshiba is unloading its U.S. LNG portfolio within the framework of a wider restructuring effort designed to mitigate the damage the company has sustained in recent years. The Japanese conglomerate was rocked by an accounting fraud scandal in 2015 and then saw Westinghouse Electric, its U.S. nuclear power subsidiary, fall into bankruptcy in 2017.