Qatar Well Placed to Meet Japan's LNG Demand

Standard Chartered has said in a report that Qatar will continue to meet Japan’s growing liquefied natural gas demand because of its significant fleet of LNG tankers.

Referring to the recent contract signed between Qatargas and Tepco, the bank said it highlights Japan’s need for LNG as an alternative source of power to compensate for some of the 50 nuclear power plants that remain offline following the Fukushima disaster, Gulf Times reported.

Last month, Qatargas signed a contract to deliver 1mn tonnes of LNG a year, under a long-term contract with Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco).

This is the first long-term bilateral agreement between both companies. Qatargas supplies a total of 200,000 tonnes of LNG a year to Tepco and seven other firms, under a contract running from June 1999 to December 2021.

“Since the beginning of 2012 Qatar has been actively signing LNG contracts with a number of Asian countries, such as South Korea, Taiwan and Pakistan. This is not surprising given the challenging market conditions in Europe, and the self sufficiency of US markets on the back of shale gas,” Standard Chartered said in its latest Mena focus.