LNG

QatarEnergy has placed the first batch of LNG shipbuilding orders with South Korean shipyards consisting of four vessels from Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (DSME) and two vessels from Samsung Heavy Industries (SHI), as part of QatarEnergy’s shipbuilding program to serve future expansion plans.

Oct 11 (LNGJ) - Qatar Petroleum, owner of the world’s largest LNG export plant at Ras Laffan in the Gulf, has changed its name to Qatar Energy. “It’s more of a reflection of what we’re actually doing that wasn’t reflected by the name that we had,” said President and Chief Executive Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi.

   Al-Kaabi, who is also the Qatari Minister of State for Energy, said the new Qatar Energy state-owned company also wanted to be more efficient and environmentally sound as it expanded production from 77 million tonnes per annum to an eventual 127 MTPA by 2027. Al-Kaabi added that regasified LNG, which generates lower emissions than other fossil fuels such as oil and coal, would remain part of the global energy mix for years to come even as the world slowly shifted to renewable energy sources.

Oct 4 (LNGJ) - The 258,000 cubic metres capacity Q-Max LNG carrier “Al Ghuwairiya” is scheduled to deliver a cargo on October 6 to the UK South Hook import terminal at Milford Haven in Wales from the Ras Laffan plant in Qatar.

   The shipment was lifted on September 16 and is arriving in the UK as the National Balancing Point (NBP) benchmark natural gas price was quoted at the equivalent of $32.65 per million British thermal units, close to last week’s all-time high for modern times.

Qatar Petroleum has ordered four new liquefied natural gas carriers from the Chinese Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding Group of Shanghai as it begins to put in place the shipping requirements for massive expansion plans.

Sept 29 (LNGJ) - Qatar Petroleum entered into a long-term sale and purchase agreement with China National Offshore Oil Co.’s trading and marketing unit for the supply of 3.5 million tonnes per annum of LNG over a 15-year period starting in January 2022. The SPA was signed during a virtual ceremony involving Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, Qatar’s Minister of State for Energy Affairs and who is also President and Chief Executive of Qatar Petroleum, and Wang Dongjin, the Chairman of CNOOC.

   “We are pleased to further build upon our strong relationship with CNOOC with the signing of this new long-term LNG supply agreement,” said Al-Kaabi. “We are especially proud to continue to meet the People's Republic of China's growing need for cleaner energy that LNG provides, and are thankful to CNOOC for partnering with us as their trusted LNG supplier,” he added.

Adriatic LNG, the operator of the largest LNG regasification terminal in Italy located offshore the eastern Veneto coastline, has formally launched its open season to allocate capacity for up to 25 years.

Adriatic LNG said the open season would culminate in a series of non-binding and binding auctions between interested operators scheduled from November 26th to the end of December 2021.

The terminal has been on line since autumn 2009 and is a private operator which enables cargo imports amounting to about 10 percent of the national gas consumption of Italy.

It has so far handled about 800 cargoes at its gravity-based structure facilities. The terminal includes two LNG storage tanks, each with a capacity of 125,000 cubic metres.

“As a result of suggestions brought to our attention by market operators, especially during the public consultation, Adriatic LNG offers 16 products, consisting in aggregated LNG discharge slots that can be combined together,” explained the company.

Shareholders

Adriatic LNG is co-controlled by ExxonMobil Italiana Gas and Qatar Terminal Ltd, a subsidiary of Qatar Petroleum, while Italian gas network operator SNAM has a 7.3 percent shareholding.

“Products available for the first auction session, closing on December 2, 2021, are published on the Open Season Catalogue of Products for Session 1,” said the company.

“Volumes offered vary between 1 billion cubic metres per year and to 1.6 Bcm per year of regasified natural gas, with duration varying between 10 and 24 years 9 months,” added Adriatic.

Total regasification capacity offered through the open season accounts for 153 Bcm.

The company stated that in order to increase the offer flexibility, Adriatic will give the opportunity to operators to submit, for certain types of products and within specific limits, personalized bids by requesting the reduction of duration and/or annual volumes.

“Adriatic may organize an additional second session by December 16, 2021 in case the capacity would not be entirely allocated during the first one. In this second session, available capacity would not be offered as products but as single discharge slots,” stated the company.

The eight supplying countries so far to the Adriatic facility have been Qatar, Angola, Egypt, Trinidad and Tobago, Equatorial Guinea, Norway, Nigeria and the US. 

Global natural gas and LNG company chief executives and managers are gathering in the United Arab Emirates for the opening on September 21 of the in-person Gastech conference and exhibition at the Dubai World Trade Centre.

Japanese liquefied natural gas imports increased for a fourth straight month while prices jumped almost 90 percent year-on-year, though imports of thermal coal surpassed LNG, surging 34.5 percent last month to meet higher power demands.

The August 2021 LNG shipments amounted to 6.29MT, or around 90 cargoes, which was 7.8 percent higher than the 5.8MT received in August 2020, according to the preliminary trade figures from Japan's Ministry of Finance.

The July deliveries had amounted to 6.18MT, up 2.5 percent from the 6.03MT received in July 2020.

Japan’s shipments in August cost 363.01 billion yen ($3.31Bln), a rise of 89.3 percent on the 191.76Bln ($1.75Bln) spent in August 2020, though for fewer cargoes.

LNG competes mainly with thermal coal for power generation in Japan and the shipments of coal increased by 34.5 percent year-on-year in August to 10.6MT.

Japan’s thermal coal imports in July 2021 were also high at 9.81MT, up 10.90 percent on the same month in 2020.

Nuclear power generation in Japan is still much reduced with only five plants with nine reactors from a total of 16 plants with 50-plus reactors having gained the agreement of local authorities to resume operations.

Just nine of these reactors are currently on line at six plants.

LNG cargo deliveries to Japan during August 2021 from nations such as Malaysia and Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Brunei rose by 18.5 percent to 1.46MT compared with August 2020.

Middle East shipments from countries like Qatar and Oman were 25.2 percent up year-on-year at 1.25MT.

However, shipments from Russia last month fell 75.7 percent to 144,000 tonnes because of maintenance work at the Sakhalin Island plant in the Russian Far East.

US cargo deliveries to Japan almost doubled year-on-year to 541,000 tonnes, though were less than the previous month's total of 611,000 tonnes.

The balance of imports in August 2021 came from Australia, African nations and the spot market.

That segment of the imports was higher than the previous month at 2.89MT versus last month’s 2.48MT and the deliveries were also above the 2.74MT received in August 2020.

Annual LNG deliveries to the Japanese import network of 37 facilities came to 74.46MT in 2020, down 3.7 percent compared with the 77.32MT received in 2019.

Imports by the world’s largest buyer of LNG have continued to drop in recent years and in 2021 the Japanese total will be overtaken by China.

Japan's 2019 import total of 77.32MT was 6.7 percent lower than the 82.85MT logged in 2018.  

Adriatic LNG, the company that owns and operates the largest LNG regasification terminal in Italy located 17 kilometres off the Veneto coastline, is launching its open season in September to allocate regasification capacity for up to 25 years.

The first liquefaction Train at the US Golden Pass LNG export project being constructed in Texas for a joint venture between Qatar Petroleum and ExxonMobil is still on schedule to come on stream by 2024.