LNG

Gaztransport and Technigaz (GTT), the French maritime LNG storage technology company, has received an order from its partner Dalian Shipbuilding Industry Company of China for the design of new storage tanks for two Chinese liquefied natural gas carriers.

GTT said that the latest orders were on behalf of Ocean Jade Investment.

Ocean Jade is a joint venture between Hong Kong shipowner Wah Kwong, Chinese leasing company CSSC (Hong Kong) Shipping and China Gas Holdings.

GTT will design the tanks of these two vessels, which will each offer a capacity of 175,000 cubic metres.

“The tanks will be fitted with the Mark III Flex membrane containment system developed by GTT,” said the Paris-based company.

The delivery of the vessels is scheduled between the first and the second quarters of 2028.

At the start of July 2024 GTT received another order from the China Merchants Heavy Industry shipyard in the eastern province of Jiangsu for the tank design of a new LNG carrier as its orders stack up.

GTT said the order was for the tank design of a new LNG carrier on behalf of Danish ship-owner Celsius with delivery scheduled for the third quarter of 2027.

Qatar expansion orders

At the end of June 2024, GTT received a second wave of orders from Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding for sets of tanks for 10 more vessels as part of QatarEnergy’s “Hundred Ships Programme” to handle the deliveries from multiple expansion projects in the Arabian Gulf.

That GTT order for tanks fitted to 10 large LNG carriers brought to 18 the number of Qatari LNG vessels ordered from China with the new generation of storage tanks.

GTT said it would design the tanks for these 10 very large LNG carriers, which will each have five tanks with a total capacity of 271,000 cubic metres capacity.

The tanks will be fitted with the No. 96 Super-plus membrane containment system developed by GTT.

Delivery from GTT is scheduled between the first quarter of 2030 and the fourth quarter of 2031.

GTT earlier received orders in February 2024 for the designs of tanks for eight Qatari LNG carriers, also with five per ship and with total capacity of 271,000 cubic metres.

The eight-ship order was under a “strategic cooperation agreement” with China State Shipbuilding Corp., the leading Chinese shipbuilding group.

Delivery of this batch is scheduled between the second quarter of 2028 and the fourth quarter of 2029.

The ship designs will have the same overall dimensions as the current largest Q-Max ships but with an increased cargo-carrying capacity.

Oct 23 (LNGJ) - Italian major Eni became the latest company to sign a long-term LNG supply contract for volumes from the expansion being developed in the Arabian Gulf by QatarEnergy. The Eni cargoes will come from a joint venture with QatarEnergy for the development of the North Field East (NFE) project and will amount to the delivery of up to 1.1 million tonnes per annum of LNG. 

   The Milan-based company said the volumes would be delivered to the floating storage and regasification unit “FSRU Italia” currently berthed in the port of Piombino in Tuscany and deliveries would start in 2026 for a period of 27 years. “This agreement strengthens the partnership between Eni and QatarEnergy and it is a further step in the development of Eni’s integrated global LNG portfolio,” said Eni. The company is already importing around 2.15MT per annum from Qatar under a long term supply agreement signed in 2007.

China Petroleum & Chemical Corp., known as Sinopec, has signed a cargo supply deal with QatarEnergy to receive 4 million tonnes per annum of cargoes from the Ras Laffan plant in the Arabian Gulf from 2026.

QatarEnergy has selected UK major Shell as the second international partner for the LNG expansion known as the North Field South (NFS) liquefaction and export joint venture.

US major ConocoPhillips become the third international company to be awarded a stake in QatarEnergy’s North Field East (NFE) liquefied natural gas expansion project aimed at putting Qatar back in the No. 1 spot for global exporters.

QatarEnergy still holds a majority stake in the $28.75 billion NFE expansion joint venture after earlier awarded similar stakes to French major TotalEnergies and Italy’s Eni.

The NFE expansion is scheduled to come on stream by early 2022 using abundant feed gas from the North field in the Arabian Gulf and boosting Qatar’s LNG production capacity to 110 million tonnes per annum from the existing 77 MTPA.

Ryan Lance, the Chairman and Chief Executive of ConocoPhillips, signed the partnership agreement during a ceremony held at QatarEnergy’s headquarters in Doha in the presence of senior executives from both companies.

ConocoPhillips has similar terms to its French and Italian counterparts and has a 25 percent interest in a new joint venture with QatarEnergy owning 75 percent.

The Qatar-ConocoPhillips joint venture will hold a 12.5 percent stake in the 32 MTPA NFE development.

The upstream part of the project is already under way to develop the southeast area of the North Field via eight platforms, 80 wells and gas pipelines to the onshore liquefaction plant.

Experience

“We sign a new partnership agreement that will further enhance our relationship and enable us to benefit from the wide experience of ConocoPhillips in the development of the world’s largest LNG expansion project,” said Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, the Minister of State for Energy Affairs for Qatar as well as President and CEO of QatarEnergy.

“Our work together will enable us to meet our target of increasing the State of Qatar’s LNG production capacity,” he added.

“Our collaboration will help produce cleaner energy to meet growing global demand and achieve a realistic energy transition towards achieving our climate change objectives thanks to the project’s industry-leading environmental attributes, including carbon capture and sequestration and other technologies deployed in this project,” explained Al-Kaabi.

In his remarks during the ceremony, ConocoPhillips CEO Lance said the US major was delighted to build on its long history of partnering with Qatar and to participate in this next phase of development of Qatar's North Field.

“We recognize that LNG plays an increasingly important role in energy security and the global energy transition,” stated Lance.

QatarEnergy said more partners are scheduled to join the NFE expansion project and relevant announcements would be made soon.

Qatar’s long-term main energy partner, ExxonMobil, is expected to be a another of the shareholders amid media speculation that a Chinese oil and gas major may also be accorded a Gulf LNG stake for the first time.

The global LNG fleet is heading for the 800 vessels mark from the current 700 ships with South Korean shipyard Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering (DSME) being the latest to receive a $850 million order for four newbuilds from Qatar.

The orders are increasing to keep pace with LNG and demand liquefaction plant expansion by nations such as Qatar and the US.

DSME, the world's No. 4 shipbuilder by order backlog, said it would build the vessels with 174,000 cubic metres of capacity at the Okpo shipyard on the south coast and deliver them by the first half of 2025.

The order is the first result of a $19 billion contract that DSME and two other Korean shipbuilders, Hyundai Heavy Industries and Samsung Heavy Industries, have signed with QatarEnergy to construct scores of LNG vessels through 2027.

The contract is in line with Qatar's plan to boost its LNG production capacity to 126 million tonnes per annum by 2027 from the current 77 million tons.

Analysts said that DSME's order is widely expected to lead to the securing of more orders for LNG carriers by the three major Korean shipbuilders.

DSME won $4 billion in orders in the first quarter of 2022, including eight LNG carriers, six containerships, one offshore platform and one depot maintenance order.

The six containerships ordered had a specification for dual-fuel capability.

Among the LNG shipping companies ordering the newbuilds in the first quarter was GasLog Ltd, the Greek LNG shipping firm.

GasLog is currently expanding its fleet ordered four newbuild 174,000 cubic metres capacity vessels for delivery in 2024 and 2025.

The yard added that the GasLog ships would also be equipped with the latest generation M-type Electronically Controlled, Gas Injection (ME-GI) propulsion system.

They would also fitting a more advanced re-liquefaction system.

Last year 68 LNG newbuilds were delivered compared with 47 LNG ships in 2020.

The global LNG fleet consisted of 700 vessels at the start of 2022 and is now headed for 800 in the next two or three years.

The current total includes 48 floating storage and regasification units that can act as import terminals. Total cargo capacity in 2022 was more than 105 million cubic metres.

The average spot charter rate for a 160,000 cubic metres LNG carrier stood at around $89,200 per day last year compared with $59,300 per day in the previous year.

Saipem, the Italian energy and LNG engineering company and an offshore specialist, has been awarded a contract by Aker BP for a drilling campaign offshore Norway as upstream activities are set to increase.

Air Products, the LNG equipment-maker now branching out with mega-projects in the Middle East and with a growing gasification business in China, reported fiscal first-quarter sales of $3 billion and higher net income.