Qatar’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) fleet is set to expand to 200 vessels within the next five years as part of efforts to ensure steady supply to its customers. “We have launched the largest shipbuilding programme in the industry’s history, comprising 128 state-of-the-art LNG carriers with outstanding operational and environmental standards. We have already received 38 new vessels and will receive a new one every three weeks.
This will give QatarEnergy the largest LNG carrier fleet in the world, reaching about 200 vessels within the next few years,” HE Saad bin Sherida al-Kaabi, Minister of State for Energy Affairs and president and chief executive officer of QatarEnergy told the 21st International Conference and Exhibition on Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG2026), which will run until February 5.
Since 2020, QatarEnergy has been pursuing a massive shipbuilding programme which has grown to a total of 128 new LNG tankers to be delivered by around 2030.
Currently, the Qatar Stock Exchange-listed Nakilat owns a fleet of 69 vessels which are chartered to QatarEnergy. Nakilat has already been assigned 34 of the new-build vessels.
The first seven of the new vessels have now entered service, under an agreement QatarEnergy reached for a JV of Japan’s Mitsui OSK (MOL) and China’s Cosco to own and operate the vessels.
In 2022, QatarEnergy placed an order for 60 vessels in the first phase, followed by 62 vessels in the second phase in 2024, representing the largest single shipbuilding project in history.
Since 2022, QatarEnergy has signed a series of TCPs (time charter party) for the long-term charter and operation of 104 conventional LNG vessels, as part of its historic LNG fleet expansion programme.
This initiative will support QatarEnergy’s expanding LNG production capacity from the North Field LNG expansion and Golden Pass LNG export projects, as well as meeting its long-term fleet replacement requirements.
In 2024, QatarEnergy’s agreement with China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC) enables the construction of 18 QC-Max size LNG vessels, with a capacity of 271,000 cubic meters each, which will be built at
China’s Hudong-Zhonghua Shipyard, a CSSC wholly-owned subsidiary. With a total length of 344m, a beam of 53.6m, a depth of 27.2m, and a designed draft of 12m, these vessels will adopt a dual-fuel low-speed engine propulsion system.
The careful ship-owner selection process followed a detailed and rigorous global tender, signifying QatarEnergy’s commitment to expanding its fleet of modern LNG carriers in collaboration with world-class ship-owners and in an open and transparent manner.