25 April 2024
Qatar flexes LNG muscles with three-train expansion plan
Publication date: 31 March 2018
Gas Strategies Group
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Qatar Petroleum’s announcement in March that it had awarded Japan’s Chiyoda Corporation the Front-End Engineering and Design (FEED) contract for three new 7.8-mtpa LNG liquefaction trains, and pre-investment in a fourth train, ended months of speculation that Qatar might choose to debottleneck its existing mega-trains in Ras Laffan as part of its planned 23 mtpa expansion.
With LNG production from the first of the three new trains expected by the end of 2023, the new facilities will lift Qatar’s nameplate LNG capacity to just over 100 mtpa by 2025 or 2026, helping it retain its position as the world’s biggest LNG supplier – although Australia is expected to hold that title for a while from 2020.
A fourth train would take Qatar’s planned expansion to beyond 31 mtpa, on its own a greater capacity than most LNG-producing countries today, representing a sizable part of the forecasted need for new liquefaction by 2030.