Qatargas, Petronas Extend LNG Contract

Qatargas October 19 announced the signing of a new five-year LNG agreement with Petronas’ UK trading arm, Petronas LNG UK Limited (PLUK).

Under the terms of the new agreement, Qatargas will deliver to PLUK until December 31, 2023, an extension of its current contract that was due to expire on December 31, 2018.

A total of 1.1mn mt/yr has been secured through the contract extension, Qatargas said. The LNG will be supplied from Qatargas 4 (Train 7), a joint venture between Qatar Petroleum and Shell that started production in January 2011, and be delivered on board Q-Flex LNG vessels to the Dragon LNG terminal at Milford Haven, United Kingdom.

PLUK is the Atlantic basin-focused LNG trading subsidiary of Malaysian Petronas. PLUK is also responsible for securing LNG supplies into Dragon LNG terminal where Petronas owns a 50% equity and capacity stake. 

Qatargas's chairman Saad Sherida al-Kaabi last week returned from a trip to Japan, the world's largest LNG market, aimed at persuading long-term customers there to extend their contracts into the 2020s.

 Q-Flex LNG vessel (Credit: Qatargas)

Meanwhile in Woodside's 3Q results announced October 20, the Australian firm said that its discussions were "ongoing" with Indonesian state Pertamina about converting a Heads of Agreement (HoA) to a full LNG supply contract. The HoA, announced on April 13, envisages the supply of 0.5 to 1.0mn mt/yr from Woodside's portfolio for a period of 15 to 20 years starting in 2019.

Shardul Sharma