Nueva Era Pipeline, a subsidiary of Howard Midstream Energy Partners, closed on $353.3 million in project financing for the construction of the Nueva Era pipeline project.

A joint venture between HEP and Mexico-based energy and services firm Grupo CLISA, the Nueva Era pipeline project will connect HEP’s existing Webb County Hub in South Texas directly to Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico.

The banks that provided financing for the Nueva Era project include MUFG, Santander, Societe Generale, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking and CaixaBank.

Construction activities began earlier this year on the approximately 200-mile, 36- and 30-inch Nueva Era pipeline, which will provide seamless transportation service for approximately 600 million cubic feet per day of natural gas (expandable to 900 million cubic feet per day), connecting producers in South Texas directly with end-users in northern Mexico.

The Comision Federal de Electricidad, Mexico’s state-owned electric utility, is the anchor shipper on the Nueva Era project, having committed to transport 504 million cubic feet of natural gas per day on the system for a 25-year term, to help fuel combined-cycle power plants in Escobedo and Huinalá, near Monterrey. The Nueva Era pipeline also offers natural gas transportation services to private shippers on an open access basis. The project is expected to be completed and in service in the second half of 2017.

San Antonio, TX-based Howard Midstream Energy Partners, dba Howard Energy Partners is an independent midstream energy company, owning and operating natural gas gathering and transportation pipelines, natural gas liquids processing plants, rail facilities, liquid storage terminals, deep-water port facilities and other related midstream assets in Texas and Pennsylvania.