Singapore's investment company, Temasek Holdings (Private) Limited, is finalising the sale of some assets from liquefied natural gas (LNG) trading company Pavilion Energy Pte. Ltd. to Shell plc (LSE:SHEL), with a deal set to be completed in the coming days, two sources with knowledge of the matter said. The deal will provide Shell, already the world's top LNG trader, with access to gas markets in Europe and Singapore as it aggressively expands its LNG footprint after raking in billions of profits in 2023.

The deal's value will be in the hundreds of millions of US dollars, one of the sources said. That would be below what Temasek had originally sought from the sale. Reuters reported in April that Shell and Saudi Aramco had been in advanced talks to buy the assets from Temasek, which had sought to fetch more than $2 billion (SGD 2.7 billion) from the deal.

The sources declined to be identified as they were not authorised to speak with media. Temasek, Pavilion Energy and Shell declined to comment. The deal comes months after Temasek put the Singapore-based trader up for sale after Pavilion Energy turned in a profit in the year to March 2023 on robust LNG prices in the wake of the Ukraine war.

Shell has been supplying a quarter of Singapore's natural gas needs, and the deal will make it the biggest supplier to the Republic. However, the Pavilion Energy asset sale will exclude Gas Supply, which has a licence to import natural gas by pipeline from Indonesia, the sources said, due to energy security concerns. Temasek set up Pavilion Energy a decade ago to focus on LNG-related investments.