Qatar Petroleum (QP) may purchase around 50 to 60 new LNG vessels as part of its strategy to raise its liquefied natural gas production output from 77mn tonnes per year (mtpy) to 110mtpy by 2024.
Speaking at a press conference on Monday, HE the Minister of State for Energy Affairs Saad bin Sherida al-Kaabi, who is also president and CEO of QP, said the state-run oil company has a team, which is in talks with different ship builders worldwide.
“A team from QP has visited different ship builders around the world and there will be an international tender that will be put in place to procure these ships and a mechanism that we will do related to this initiative.
“It depends (the number of new ships); it is still really very fluid because we need ships for different destinations and the sizes and so on, but it is more or less 50 to 60 ships…the final number will be announced once we have finalised everything,” al-Kaabi said, who also noted that QP is looking to South Korea and other countries for its ship building needs.
He also clarified that QP is “building four trains and we are moving from 77mtpy to 110mtpy in Qatar, and 16mtpy abroad, so the total number that we participate in is actually 126mtpy…we are moving ahead, and the feed will be completed next month for all the engineering onshore; the rig contract will be awarded very soon.”
“A team from QP has visited different ship builders around the world and there will be an international tender that will be put in place to procure these ships and a mechanism that we will do related to this initiative.
“It depends (the number of new ships); it is still really very fluid because we need ships for different destinations and the sizes and so on, but it is more or less 50 to 60 ships…the final number will be announced once we have finalised everything,” al-Kaabi said, who also noted that QP is looking to South Korea and other countries for its ship building needs.
He also clarified that QP is “building four trains and we are moving from 77mtpy to 110mtpy in Qatar, and 16mtpy abroad, so the total number that we participate in is actually 126mtpy…we are moving ahead, and the feed will be completed next month for all the engineering onshore; the rig contract will be awarded very soon.”
