Page 13 - AsianOil Week 16
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QP said the agreement would meet the com- pany’s future LNG carrier fleet requirements, including those of its ongoing North Field expansion projects. The expansion will increase the country’s LNG production capacity from 77mn tonnes per year to 126mn tpy.
Al-Kaabi added that the agreement could be worth “well in excess of QAR11bn [$3.02bn], depending on our requirements and the extent of China’s LNG shipbuilding capacity expansion.”
Hudong-Zhonghua was China’s first yard capable of building LNG carriers and has slowly been expanding its capacity for such projects.
The company revealed in January that it had signed an agreement with Malaysia’s state- owned Petronas to build two 79,900 cubic metre LNG carriers capable of sailing in coastal areas and rivers.
Commenting on the deal with QP, CSSC chairman Lei Fanpei said his company would build 174,000 cubic metre capacity carriers that had been customised for Qatar.
QP originally launched a tender for the con- struction of 60 LNG carriers in 2019, with the potential for the number of newbuilds to surpass 100 over a 10-year period.
Shell, GCL considering Chinese LNG joint venture
PROJECTS & COMPANIES
PRIVATELY owned Chinese company GCL Oil & Natural Gas has signed a framework agree- ment with super-major Royal Dutch Shell to explore a potential joint venture to market and trade LNG.
According to an announcement from GCL, the proposed joint venture would be based in eastern China. It would involve LNG supplies secured from Shell and marketed to a receiving terminal that GCL is planning to build in Jiangsu Province.
Reuters reported this week that a Shell spokeswoman had confirmed the agreement, but added that no further details had so far been provided by either of the companies involved.
However, a GCL strategic planning official, Huang Shaohua, told Reuters that the company was intending to develop three receiving termi- nals along China’s east coast – Yantai in Shan- dong Province, Rudong in Jiangsu and Maoming in Guangdong. The three terminals will have a combined handling capacity of 14.5mn tonnes per year.
Yantai LNG was reported in March to have received regulatory approval earlier this year. Huang said GCL was aiming to begin construc- tion on the 5mn t/y facility later this year. Yantai is estimated to cost $1.1bn to build, and is due to enter service in 2023.
According to Huang, GCL submitted an investment plan for the 6.5mn t/y Rudong terminal to the state authority in Decem- ber 2019.
He also said the company was in discus- sions with state-run PetroChina over the possibility of joint investment in the 3mn t/y Maoming project.
GCL is a subsidiary of private energy and power firm GCL (Group) Holding. It is one of a handful of privately owned Chinese com- panies that are moving into LNG infrastruc- ture development. So far, the country’s LNG industry has been dominated by the three leading state-owned firms – China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC), PetroChina and Sinopec.
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