DOHA/PARIS, June 12 (Reuters) – Qatar on Sunday awarded TotalEnergies a 25% stake in a new joint venture, alongside state-owned QatarEnergy (75%), to boost its total natural gas export capacity liquefied (LNG).
The Gulf country plans to announce more partners in the coming days as part of the first and largest phase of a nearly $30 billion expansion of the Northfield project.
The joint venture for which TotalEnergies was selected following a call for tenders will hold 25% of the North Field East (NFE) project of 32 million tonnes per year (Mtpy) of LNG, equivalent to a liquefaction unit (also called “train”) of 8 Mtpa.
Qatar’s LNG capacity expansion will include a total of six trains that will increase the country’s liquefaction capacity from 77 to 126 Mtpy by 2027. Oil majors have applied for NFE’s four trains, the other two units part of a second phase, the North Field South.
Saad al-Kaabi, managing director of QatarEnergy and energy minister, said TotalEnergies’ share would give the French group 6% of all four NFE trains.
TotalEnergies said in a press release that the upstream part of the NFE project foresees the development of the south-eastern zone of the field, via eight platforms, 80 wells and gas pipelines to the onshore plant.
The group added that the project would pay particular attention to environmental and climate issues by adopting “the highest standards to reduce (its) emissions”.
TotalEnergies has been involved in Qatari LNG since the birth of this industry, around 30 years ago, through Qatargas 1, then Qatargas 2 in 2005.
“With its low costs and low greenhouse gas emissions, thanks to carbon capture and storage, the North Field extension will make an exemplary and major contribution to our growth strategy in low-carbon LNG”, said the CEO of the group, Patrick Pouyanné, quoted in the press release.
“This new partnership will indeed allow us to strengthen our global LNG portfolio and, together with Qatar, it will support our ability to contribute to Europe’s energy security.”
Exxon Mobil Corp, Shell, ConocoPhillips and Eni will also participate in the expansion of North Field, which will strengthen Qatar’s position as the world’s largest LNG exporter and help secure Europe’s long-term gas supply as that the continent is looking for alternatives to Russian gas, people familiar with the matter said. (Report Maha El Dahan in Doha and Benjamin Mallet in Paris)