The world is witnessing a new wave of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) demand boom. LNG is being promoted as the fossil fuel of the future thanks to its relatively low carbon emissions. Qatar Petroleum’s recent announcement to increase the capacity of Qatar’s LNG production by adding a fourth liquefaction train, will further boost Qatar’s leading position as the world’s largest LNG producer and exporter.
Eng Saad Sherida Al Kaabi, President & CEO of QP, said: “We believe that LNG has bright prospects, and that the new expansion project reflects QP’s commitment to meeting its worldwide customers’ growing needs for this reliable and environmentally-friendly fuel. This production addition will have a great impact on Qatar’s economic growth and will help stimulate our local economy.”
When the expansion project is completed, Qatar’s LNG production capacity will reach 110 million tonnes per annum (MTPA), an increase of around 43 percent from its current production capacity of 77 MTPA. With the addition of the fourth train, the new project will produce about 32 MTPA of LNG, 4,000 tonnes per day of ethane, 260,000 barrels per day of condensate, and 11,000 tonnes per day of LPG and approximately 20 tonnes per day of pure helium.
Global LNG consumption is expected to rise by more than a third over the next decade to 416 million tonnes a year, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
At the Gastech 2018 Conference & Exhibition held in Barcelona, Spain recently, Al Kaabi said that natural gas is playing an increasing key role, not as a transition fuel, but rather as a destination fuel due to its environmental qualities as the cleanest fossil fuel. “At the same time, many countries around the world are placing greater emphasis on natural gas as a strategic source of energy and an important element of its national energy security,” he said.
Early this month, Qatargas announced a 22-year Sale and Purchase Agreement with PetroChina International Company Ltd, a unit of PetroChina, to supply China with around 3.4 million tonnes of LNG per annum. In addition, QP concluded a three-year agreement to supply India’s Haldia Petrochemicals Ltd, with a total of 600,000 tonnes of Light Naphtha starting this year.
Qatar already has strong and good relations with major LNG consumers in the world such as Japan and South Korea. Imports from China, India other Asian and African countries, as well as Europe are helping the increase in demand for LNG. All in all, the demand for LNG is bound to rise in the coming years as it is the cleanest of hydrocarbon fuels and Qatar is well-placed to meeting world’s energy demand in environment-friendly way.
