Qatar Petroleum has issued an invitation to tender to a large group of shipowners as it aims to firm up long-term LNG carrier charters to cover its future production increase.
The state-owned company’s shipping requirements are set to rise with the ongoing expansion project in the North Field, which will raise Qatar’s current LNG production capacity of 77 million tons per annum to 126 million tons per annum by 2027.
The ITT package aims at selecting world-class ship owners for the long-term time charter of LNG carriers to satisfy the future requirements of Qatar Petroleum and its subsidiaries, the company said in its statement.
In addition to the North Field Expansion project, the ITT package also covers the requirements for the LNG volumes that will be produced from the Golden Pass LNG export project in the United States.
Furthermore, the ITT includes options to replace time charters for a number of Qatar’s LNG carriers that will expire in the next few years, Qatar Petroleum’s statement reads.
Commenting on this occasion, Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi , the Minister of State for Energy Affairs, the President and CEO of Qatar Petroleum, said, “upon receiving the responses to the ITT, Qatar Petroleum will review bidders’ technical and commercial capabilities with the objective of assigning selected ship owners to the shipyards’ construction slots, which were previously reserved at a number of Chinese and Korean shipyards.”
“As we have previously announced, Qatar Petroleum entered into agreements with major Korean and Chinese shipyards to reserve LNG ship construction capacity for building as many as 100 new LNG carriers to cater for the needs of North Field Expansion project as well as for Qatar Petroleum’s future LNG carrier fleet requirements, in what will be the largest LNG shipbuilding program in history,” he said.
Qatar Petroleum has entrusted Qatargas with the management of this ship-owner selection program on its behalf.