QatarEnergy has awarded the major engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contract for its North Field LNG Expansion Project which promises to boost Qatar’s LNG production capacity from its current 77 mtpa to 126 mtpa by 2027.
A joint venture (JV) between Spain’s Técnicas Reunidas SA (TR) and China’s Wison Engineering (Wison) secured the EPC contract to add four new trains at Qatar’s North Field East. QatarEnergy called the award the “final major milestone” of the expansion’s first phase which is scheduled to start at the end of 2025, raising Qatar’s LNG capacity initially to 110 mtpa.
Qatar will top off the final 16 mtpa in expanded capacity by adding two more trains at North Field South (NFS) during Phase 2 for which another EPC contract will be awarded by the end of this year, QatarEnergy said.
Besides the EPC deal, the TR-Wison JV also won a separate $600 million lump-sum contract to construct new sulfur-handling, storage, and loading facilities to process and export sulfur from the existing expansion of the LNG plant at Ras Laffan Industrial City, 80 km north of Doha, according to TR.
Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, the Minister of State for Energy Affairs and president and CEO of QatarEnergy, called the deal “the largest of its kind in the history of the LNG industry” adding that “the contract with the TR-Wison joint venture includes options for the NFS project as well as any future requirements for the handling, storage, and loading of sulfur.”
The new sulfur plant will process an average of 5,000 tons of molten sulfur per day, connecting new facilities to the existing sulfur-gathering system while also constructing “new granulators, solid-sulfur-storage capacity, sulfur-handling equipment, and a new ship-loading system,” TR said in a press release.
The two contracts announced on 28 April are in addition to QatarEnergy’s previous $500 million award to TR in August 2021 for a package that included construction of liquid products rundown lines, lean-gas pipelines to deliver gas to Qatar Petroleum’s domestic gas grid, expansion of product storage and loading facilities at the Ras Laffan Terminal Operations, expansion of monoethylene glycol storage and transfer facilities, and a CO2 sequestration pipeline and facilities at CO2-injection wellheads, TR said.
QatarEnergy (formerly Qatar Petroleum) took 100% ownership of Qatargas Liquefield Natural Gas Company Ltd. on 1 January of this year with the expiration of its JV with TotalEnergies, ExxonMobil, Marubeni Corp., and Mitsui & Co. Ltd., a partnership that had laid the foundation of Qatar’s LNG industry in 1984.
