By GMM Technologies | 2024-05-02 | Ship Building News |

China State Shipbuilding Corporation and Qatar Energy recently announced an order for 18 of the world’s largest LNG carriers, marking the next stage in their collaboration and support for Qatar’s LNG growth initiatives.

The deal, valued at approximately $6 billion, is considered the biggest single LNG order and one of the greatest in the industry.

The new vessels will form part of the expanded QC-MAX LNG carrier, which has a 271,000 cubic meter capacity in five tanks.

The Q-Max vessels, dedicatedly deployed for Qatar, can hold between 263,000 and 266,000 cubic meters of LNG.

Qatar also recently highlighted that the bulk of the shipbuilding orders, which hit 104 vessels, are of the traditional size, boasting a capacity of 174,000 cubic meters.

Qatar Energy has called the mission the greatest shipbuilding and leasing in the industry’s history.

A statement from QatarEnergy mentions that eight QC-Max size LNG containers will be supplied in 2028 and 2029, with the other 10 in 2030 and 2031.

In 2023, Qatari LNG deliveries to its key clients in China came to about 17 million tons.

In the same year, Qatar also served as a critical supplier of crude oil (equivalent to 8.6 million tons), LPG (2.2 million tons), naphtha (2.3 million tons), helium (650 million cubic feet), and polymers, fertilizers, and chemicals (1.6 million tons) to China.

With a value of nearly 6 billion dollars to construct these contemporary, largest ever LNG vessels by size, the deal signed is the industry’s most significant single shipbuilding agreement ever, stated Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, the Minister of State for Energy Affairs and President and QatarEnergy’s CEO.

According to Al-Kaabi, Hudong-Zhonghua is now constructing 12 conventional-size LNG vessels, with the first scheduled for delivery in the third quarter of this year.

This agreement highlights the expanding collaboration between Qatar and China, particularly in the energy sector.

Qatar, competing with the US to emerge as the greatest exporter of LNG, reports that it will bolster production by almost 85% by 2030 to 142 million tonnes per annum.

Earlier this year, Qatar Energy declared further expansion missions for the North Field, reporting that it accounts for 10% of the world’s LNG reserves.

Reference: Marine Link