QatarEnergy has placed the first batch of LNG shipbuilding orders with Korean shipyards consisting of four vessels from Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (DSME) and two vessels from Samsung Heavy Industries (SHI).

The orders came in the form of QatarEnergy’s declaration of its ship construction options with the two Korean shipyards under its Reservation of Shipyard Capacity agreements signed in May 2020.

Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, the Minister of State for Energy Affairs, the President and CEO of QatarEnergy, said: “We are pleased to take this further step with DSME and SHI, which have built 23 Q-Flex and 14 Q-Max LNG vessels for Qatar as part of our previous LNG expansion project.”

“These orders, and those that will follow in the near future, constitute a significant part of our program to expand Qatar’s LNG fleet to meet the requirements of our LNG expansion projects, our existing fleet replacement, as well as our LNG trading arm.

“I would like to take this opportunity to thank the management and working teams from DSME, SHI, QatarEnergy and Qatargas, whose dedicated efforts were instrumental in the realization of this milestone,” he added.

The North Field expansion projects will increase Qatar's LNG production capacity from 77 million tons per annum to 126 million tons per annum by 2027. QatarEnergy’s LNG carrier fleet program is the largest of its kind in the LNG industry and is designed to meet the shipping requirements of QatarEnergy’s LNG expansion projects, as well as replacing part of Qatar's existing LNG fleet. – TradeArabia News Service