QatarEnergy orders six new LNGCs
State-owned QatarEnergy has placed an order for six new LNG carriers with Korean shipyards, it said on November 7.
QatarEnergy, previously known as Qatar Petroleum, placed an order for four vessels with Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering and two with Samsung Heavy Industries. The orders are part of the company’s shipbuilding programme to meet its future LNG carrier requirements.
The orders came in the form of QatarEnergy’s declaration of its ship construction options with the two Korean shipyards under its Reservation of Shipyard Capacity agreements signed in May 2020. The shipyards have built 23 Q-Flex and 14 Q-Max LNG vessels for Qatar as part of our previous LNG expansion project, the company said.
“These orders, and those that will follow in the near future, constitute a significant part of our programme to expand Qatar’s LNG fleet to meet the requirements of our LNG expansion projects, our existing fleet replacement, as well as our LNG trading arm,” QatarEnergy CEO and minister of state for energy, Saad al-Kaabi said.
Last month, QatarEnergy ordered four new LNG carriers from China’s Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding, a wholly-owned subsidiary of China State Shipbuilding Corp.
The proposed North Field expansion projects will increase Qatar's LNG production capacity from 77mn metric tons/year to 126mn mt/yr. Qatar took the final investment decision for developing the North Field East (NFE) project, the world’s largest LNG project, in February this year. NFE project will expand Qatar's LNG production capacity from 77mn mt/yr to 110mn mt/yr.
The NFE project represents the first phase of LNG expansion in Qatar, while the second phase, referred to as the North Field South project (NFS), will further increase Qatar’s LNG production capacity from 110mn mt/yr to 126mn mt/yr.
With an expected production start date in 2027, the NFS project involves the construction of two additional mega LNG trains with a capacity of 8mn mt/yr each and associated offshore and onshore facilities.