Qatar Petroleum orders four LNGCs from China
Qatar Petroleum has ordered four new LNG carriers from China’s Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding, a wholly-owned subsidiary of China State Shipbuilding Corp, it said on October 3.
These four carriers are the first batch of orders in Qatar Petroleum’s LNG shipbuilding programme, which will cater for future LNG fleet requirements for the North Field expansion projects as well as for existing vessel replacement requirements, the company said.
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The 2.8bn Qatari riyals ($770mn) order is the first-ever placed by Qatar Petroleum with a Chinese shipyard for LNG ships, and the first with Hudong in connection with the agreement to reserve ship construction capacity that was executed in April 2020.
“We continue to push forward with our LNG expansion projects, and today’s announcement is yet another step in our journey,” Saad al-Kaabi, Qatar's minister of state for energy affairs and Qatar Petroleum CEO, said. “I am especially pleased with the signing of this order as it marks our first-ever new LNG carrier to be built in the People’s Republic of China.”
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.