Qatar has reached a 27-year liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply agreement with the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), the second long-term contract with Beijing in less than a year, the minister of Qatar energy. The wealthy Gulf emirate, which is one of the world’s top LNG producers along with the United States and Australia, already counts China, Japan and South Korea among its biggest customers. But it also hopes to seal contracts with European countries, the latter refusing to sign long-term agreements.
Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi also announced that China National Petroleum would “join the family” of Qatari gas by participating in North Field East (NFE), a project to expand the North Field offshore field, the world’s largest natural gas field. . world that Qatar shares with Iran. QatarEnergy will thus transfer to CNPC a 5% stake in NFE, the equivalent of a liquefaction train with a capacity of 8 million tons a year, he said.
An increase of 50 million tons in production capacity by 2027
In November 2022, QatarEnergy and Sinopec, another Chinese state-owned company, had signed an identical 4m tonnes/year supply contract for 27 years, billed at the time as the longest contract ever entered into in the industry. In April, this Chinese oil giant also became the largest Asian shareholder in the NFE project. NFE, estimated at $28.75 billion, is part of North Field’s expansion plans that aim to see the Gulf country grow from 77 million tons a year to 126 million by 2027.
During the signing ceremony in Doha, Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi praised “the excellent relations between China and Qatar.” CNPC’s participation in the NFE project is part of the “strategic consensus” between the two countries, company chief Dai Houliang said. Quoted in a QatarEnergy statement, he promised “a stable, long-term and multidimensional strategic partnership” with Doha in “the hydrocarbons industry and other areas such as green and low-carbon energy.” China is already Qatar’s largest customer of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and one of the world’s largest importers of this energy.
A first agreement with Germany in 15 years
Contracts to supply “several” European countries will be signed “after the summer,” Qatar recently said, many of them reluctant to sign long-term deals despite their frantic search for alternatives to Russian gas since the invasion of Ukraine. Amid a commercial seduction offensive, Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi warned in May that “the worst” was yet to come for Europe’s oil and gas shortages, saying a warm winter had averted further hardship in recent months. In November, however, Qatar announced a first agreement to supply LNG to Germany for 15 years.
China has become in 2020 the first trading partner of the six countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), including, in particular, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, with trade dominated by fossil fuels. The new gas contract with Qatar comes on the day Beijing announced Russian oil imports in May hit a record since Moscow invaded Ukraine.
Source: BFM TV
