QatarEnergy has announced the award of a major engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contract for the North Field Expansion (NFE) Project
This marks the final milestone in the expansion project which is looking to ramp up Qatar’s LNG production to 110M tonnes per annum (mta).
A joint venture between Spanish firm Técnicas Reunidas SA (TR) and Shanghai-based Wison Engineering (Wison) will serve as EPC contractor and clinched a lump-sum contract for the expansion of the sulphur handling, storage and loading facilities within Ras Laffan Industrial City.
These facilities will support the NFE’s four new LNG trains, which are scheduled to begin operations by the end of 2025. The contract includes an option for further expansion to support sulphur production for the two additional LNG trains of the North Field South (NFS) project, and infrastructure to support additional LNG trains in the future.
Sulphur produced as a byproduct of the gas treatment process required prior to the production of LNG is used in fertiliser production and as a base material for intermediary chemicals used in manufacturing industrial and household products.
QatarEnergy chief executive and the country’s Minister of State for Energy Affairs, Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi commented, “The award of this EPC contract is the culmination of our efforts to implement the NFE project, the largest of its kind in the history of LNG industry, as part of our journey for the sustainable development of our massive natural gas resources, while maintaining our position as the world’s largest, safest and most reliable LNG producer.”
The TR-Wison joint venture will manage the detailed engineering work from Qatar, leveraging the nation’s growing technical capabilities.
With the execution of this contract, the only remaining major EPC contract for the delivery of the North Field Expansion Project, comprising the NFE and NFS projects, is the contract for NFS’s two onshore processing and liquefaction trains, which QatarEnergy plans to award by the end of 2022.
When complete, the extension projects will raise the Gulf nation’s LNG production capacity from the present 77 mta to 126 mta by 2027. QatarEnergy has embarked on a massive newbuilding programme to support the expansion.
In addition, a QatarEnergy consortium inked a production-sharing deal with the Brazilian Government related to surplus volume rights of the Sépia oil field in Brazil.
The production sharing contract will see QatarEnergy hold a 21% interest along with its consortium partners Petrobras which serves as operator (30% interest), TotalEnergies (28%), and Petronas (21%).
This signing follows the award of the Sépia surplus volume rights to the consortium at the conclusion of the second transfer of rights surplus bidding round on 17 December 2021, held by Brazil’s National Agency of Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels.
Sépia is a multibillion barrel, pre-salt field located in water depths of about 2,000 m off the coast of Rio de Janeiro in the prolific Santos Basin. Production from the Sépia field began last August through a dedicated FPSO and there are plans to increase the overall production capacity with a second FPSO.
