Page 11 - MEOG Week 30 2021

MEOG TENDERS MEOG

QP nears award for NFE work

QATAR STATE-OWNED Qatar Petroleum is nearing go it alone. However, having partners to market
the award of an onshore engineering, procure- the LNG volumes produced is thought to be the
ment and construction (EPC) contract for the main driver behind Doha’s attempt to bring in
first phase of the North Field Expansion (NFE) other participants now.
project through its Qatargas subsidiary. Reports emerged around a month ago that
The news follows reports of the submission of QP was also in talks with state-owned Chinese
bids in May by ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Shell, companies including PetroChina and Sinopec
TotalEnergies, ConocoPhillips, Chevron and Eni over equity stakes in the NFE project as China
for work on the $28.75bn development. remains on course to become the world’s largest
Speaking to Upstream, sources close to pro- LNG importer.
ceedings said that an award is expected by the Beijing has seen trade relations worsen with
end of August for the third onshore EPC package Australia – a major supplier of the super-chilled
(Package 3), which includes offsites and utilities fuel – and Sinopec struck a 10-year supply deal
work. with QP in March, and reports of the talks sig-
One of the sources said that Tecnicas Reuni- nal a growing co-operation between China and
das of Spain and Italian firms Saipem and Tec- Qatar on LNG.
nimont are among the frontrunners to win the However, with the IOCs also now bidding
contract. to participate in NFE, it seems that Qatar has
The NFE project is set to increase Qatar’s liq- not fully turned away from Western majors yet
uefaction capacity from 79mn tonnes per year either, despite saying recently that it would not
currently to 110mn tpy by 2025 or 2026 and renew contracts with its current partners in
126mn tpy by 2027. It is the world’s single largest the Qatargas 1 LNG plant. The current 25-year
LNG project. JV arrangement with super-majors TotalEn-
QP took a final investment decision (FID) on ergies (10%) and ExxonMobil (10%) as well as
NFE alone earlier this year. The company had Marubeni (7.5%) and Mitsui (7.5%) expires on
previously relied on IOCs’ expertise – as well December 31, and QP will assume full owner-
as their investments – to develop its initial liq- ship on January 1, 2022, up from its current 65%
uefaction capacity but now has the expertise to holding.™

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