LNG giant QatarEnergy said on Sunday it has signed four long-term deals with Asian shipowners to charter 19 LNG carriers as part of the second phase of its massive shipbuilding program.
Deals Signed
Qatar’s energy minister and chief executive of QatarEnergy, Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, signed the deals during a ceremony held at QatarEnergy’s headquarters in Doha, and attended by senior executives from QatarEnergy, QatarEnergy LNG, and the four shipowner companies.
Under the deals, state-owned QatarEnergy will charter six 174,000-cbm vessels from China’s CMES LNG Carrier Investment, six vessels from a unit of China’s Shandong Marine, Shandong Marine Energy (Singapore), three vessels from Malaysia’s MISC, and four vessels from a joint venture of Japan’s K Line and South Korea’s Hyundai Glovis.
QatarEnergy said in a statement later on Sunday that these 15 LNG carriers are being built at South Korea’s Samsung Heavy Industries.
LNG Prime reported on March 28 citing shipbuilding sources, that QatarEnergy had selected shipowners to own and operate 18 Q-Max LNG carriers and 15 174,000-cbm LNG carriers as part of the giant program.
K Line and Hyundai Glovis
As per the four vessels QatarEnergy chartered from K Line and Hyundai Glovis, these vessels are being built at Hanwha Ocean, previously known as DSME, QatarEnergy said.
Hanwha Ocean recently signed a memorandum for 12 LNG carriers tied to QatarEnergy’s shipbuilding program and after that it secured an LNG carrier order worth about $1.84 billion for 8 carriers.
Eight of these vessels will be owned by Qatari LNG shipping giant Nakilat. QatarEnergy signed time charter agreements on March 24 with Nakilat for 25 conventional-size LNG carriers as part of the second phase of its shipbuilding program.
Each of the 25 vessels will have a capacity of 174,000 ccbm and will be chartered out by Nakilat to affiliates of QatarEnergy under the 15-year TCP agreements.
North Field Expansions
The shipbuilding program aims to support and meet future requirements of QatarEnergy’s North Field East and North Field South expansion projects, as well as the Golden Pass LNG project in the US.
In addition, part of the program is intended to cater for the replacement requirements of the existing Qatar LNG fleet.
The first phase of the North Field expansion project will increase Qatar’s LNG production capacity from 77 to 110 Mtpa, while the second phase will further boost capacity to 126 Mtpa.
Besides these projects, the company also recently announced the third North Field expansion phase to boost Qatar’s capacity to 142 mtpa.
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Source: LNGPrime
