The agreement that was signed between Qatar Petroleum (QP), Singapore-based LNT Marine, the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) and Shanghai Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding (SWS) for liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier designs is the latest sign of a new surge in gas investment that is set to shape the small Gulf state Qatar beyond the football World Cup in 2022, says GlobalData’s MEED
The focus of Qatar’s investment has been on the development of the infrastructure that needs to deliver the FIFA football World Cup in 2022, on the stadiums, the airports, rail and metro lines, and on leisure and hospitality facilities.
The World Cup has underpinned around US$13.6bn a year of project contract awards in Qatar over the past decade, with the peak years coming in 2014 and 2015, when award levels rose to around US$20.9bn and US$17.4bn, respectively.
However, over the past few years awards have slowed, begging the question about what comes after the World Cup.
Richard Thompson, editorial director of GlobalData’s MEED, said, “Part of the answer came on 8 February 2021, when Qatar gas awarded a US$13bn contract for the main package of the first phase of its North Field Expansion (NFE) megaproject to a consortium of Japan’s Chiyoda Corporation and France-based Technip Energies. It is the biggest single EPC contract ever awarded in the region, and is redolent of the early 2000s, when investments to develop six large LNG trains propelled Qatar to become the world’s biggest gas exporter.”
Qatar’s projects market in the 2020s will have many similarities to the boom of the first decade of the 2000s and the similarity goes beyond LNG, comments GlobalData’s MEED.
