Qatar Petroleum tenders for 60-100 new LNG carriers
Qatar Petroleum issued an invitation to tender for construction of the LNG carrier fleet for its North Field Expansion (NFE) project. The invitation foresees initial delivery of 60 LNG carriers, with the potential to exceed 100 new carriers over the next 10 years. The tender would increase the global LNG fleet by 11-19%. International Gas Union counted 525 LNG carriers at end-2018.
In addition to addressing shipping requirements for NFE, the tender covers shipping requirements for LNG that will be purchased and offtaken by Ocean LNG—a joint venture between Qatar Petroleum (70%) and ExxonMobil (30%)—from the Golden Pass LNG export project in Port Arthur, Tex., which is under construction and planned to start by 2024. The tender also includes options for replacement requirements for Qatar’s existing LNG fleet.
NFE will increase Qatar’s LNG production capacity to 110 million tonnes/year (tpy) starting in 2024 from 77 million tpy. The project will include construction of four new 8.25 million tpy LNG trains, which Qatar Petroleum tendered earlier this month (OGJ Online, Apr. 15, 2019).
Qatargas will execute the LNG ship building program on Qatar Petroleum’s behalf.
Contact Christopher E. Smith at [email protected].
Christopher E. Smith | Editor in Chief
Christopher brings 27 years of experience in a variety of oil and gas industry analysis and reporting roles to his work as Editor-in-Chief, specializing for the last 15 of them in midstream and transportation sectors.