A Hyundai Heavy Industries shipyard in Ulsan, South Korea, has held a steel-cutting ceremony for 17 liquefied natural gas (LNG) tankers ordered by Qatar Gas Transport Co. Ltd. (Nakilat), marking the start of construction.
Designed with a capacity of 174,000 cubic meters (6.14 million cubic feet) each, the vessels will be deployed for QatarEnergy as part of the state-owned LNG major’s fleet expansion and modernization program.
“This achievement marks a pivotal step in enhancing the company’s capacity to meet the growing demand for LNG transportation and further solidifying its leading position in the industry”, Nakilat said in an online statement.
Last year Nakilat and QatarEnergy signed “long-term” charter agreements for 25 conventional-size, 174,000-cubic-meter LNG vessels. They will be owned and operated by Nakilat. They will be built in South Korean shipyards, according to a Nakilat press release March 24, 2024.
On May 8, 2024, Nakilat said it had inked another long-term charter agreement with QatarEnergy for nine QC Max-size LNG vessels that will also be owned and operated by Nakilat.
The nine are part of 18 QC Max-size LNG ships that QatarEnergy earlier awarded for construction to China State Shipbuilding Corp. (CSSC). With a capacity of 271,000 cubic meters each, the 18 orders were worth nearly $6 billion, making it the biggest shipbuilding contract, according to QatarEnergy.
CSSC has also been contracted to build 12 conventional-size LNG vessels for QatarEnergy. Two of these were inaugurated last year, as announced by QatarEnergy September 10, 2024.
On December 11, 2024, QatarEnergy said it had selected a joint venture (JV) of Japan’s Mitsui OSK Lines Ltd. (MOL) and China’s COSCO Shipping LNG Investment (Shanghai) Co. Ltd. (CSLNG) to own and operate six more QC Max-size LNG vessels. These were the last shipowner contracts for its fleet expansion and modernization program, consisting of 128 vessels: 104 conventional-size and 24 QC Max-size.
Construction rights for the MOL-CSLNG QC Max-size vessels were earlier awarded to CSSC, as announced by QatarEnergy September 9, 2024.
The MOL-CSLNG joint venture already had time charter deals with QatarEnergy for seven conventional-size LNG vessels, penned 2022.
QatarEnergy has said its fleet expansion aims to support production growth in Qatar’s offshore North Field, as well as to serve an LNG facility it is building with Exxon Mobil Corp. in the United States.
Earlier this month QatarEnergy chief executive Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi said the Golden Pass LNG project in Sabine Pass, Texas, will begin production by year-end.
Together with the North Field expansion projects, the project with ExxonMobil will more than double QatarEnergy’s LNG production from the current 77 million metric tons per annum (MMtpa) to 160 MMtpa, according to Al-Kaabi.
The first liquefaction train from the North Field east expansion project will start production by mid-2026. “As for North Field West, it is in the engineering phase and will be going into the construction phase somewhere in 2027”, Al-Kaabi, who is also Qatar’s energy affairs minister, told the World Gas Conference in Beijing, as quoted in a statement from QatarEnergy.
“QatarEnergy will be the largest single LNG exporter as a company while Qatar, as a country, will be the second-largest exporter of LNG after the United States for a very long time”, Al-Kaabi said.
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