Qatar Petroleum tenders LNG carrier capacity for North Field expansion

Qatari state-run oil and gas company Qatar Petroleum has issued an invitation to tender for booking ship construction capacity required for the LNG carrier fleet for the North Field expansion project, which is expected to increase the domestic LNG production capacity from the current 77 Mt/year to 110 Mt/year starting from 2024. In particular, the tender entails shipping requirements for the LNG volumes that will be purchased and offtaken by Ocean LNG (a 70%-30% joint venture between Qatar Petroleum and ExxonMobil) from the Golden Pass LNG export project in the United States, which is currently under construction and also planned to start by 2024. 

In January 2019, the Ministry of Energy and Industry of Qatar announced plans to order 60 new LNG carriers (LNGCs), which will be built by South Korean shipbuilders. The LNG ship-building campaign could have the potential to exceed 100 new LNG carriers over the next decade.

Earlier in April 2019, Qatar Petroleum invited three groups to bid for engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) packages for four new LNG trains its North Field Expansion (NFE) project in Qatar. The three EPC joint ventures are the following: Chiyoda Corporation - Technip; JGC Corporation - Hyundai Engineering and Construction; and Saipem - McDermott - CTCI Corporation. More specifically, the tender calls for the engineering, procurement and construction of the four mega-LNG trains along with gas and liquid treatment facilities (ethane and Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) production and fractionation, a Helium plant, and utilities and infrastructure to support the processing units). The EPC contract is expected to be awarded in January 2020.