Addleshaw Goddard and Linklaters have picked up lead roles on the financing of a liquefied natural gas terminal acquisition in Mexico.

The deal saw a joint venture (JV) between Spanish gas storage company Enagas and tank storage company Royal Vopak acquire the Altamira LNG terminal in Mexico for $408m (£264m).

The JV acquired 100% of the shares in the terminal from Shell (which owned 50%), Total (25%) and Mitsui & Co (25%) through the deal, which was financed with $300m (£194m) of funding from a syndicate of banks led by Mizuho Corporate Bank and ING Bank.

Linklaters advised the banks on the deal, fielding a team led by London projects partner Manzer Ijaz.

Addleshaws advised the joint venture on financing arrangements, with energy and infrastructure finance head Andrew Petry leading.

Petry commented: "Because it was the acquisition of an existing piece of infrastructure, the financing had to be structured on a hybrid leveraged and project finance basis, bringing additional challenges with the banks.

"Looking at Vopak, it has now become the operator of almost 20 billion cubic metres annual throughput capacity in the space of a week, which is the equivalent of a fifth of the UK's total annual gas consumption."

The transaction marks the third time in three years that Addleshaws has acted for Vopak on an LNG terminal financing deal. In 2008 and 2009 the firm advised it on the financing and expansion financing of the Gate LNG terminal in The Netherlands, which officially opened last week (23 September).