Two sources familiar with the gas sector said that the Chinese Sinopec Company has awarded Qatargas a tender to purchase one million tons of LNG annually for a period of ten years. According to the sources, the state-owned Chinese Oil and Gas Corporation floated the tender in July, and supplies are requested from 2023.
Qatar and China are linked with strong and growing relations in the field of gas, and Qatar Petroleum recently announced that it had signed a contract to reserve capacity to build a number of LNG carriers in China, to be part of the requirements of the Qatar Petroleum Tanker fleet needed to support LNG production projects, including the expansion projects of the LNG field. North. Qatar Petroleum stated that the contract was signed with the Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding Group Company Ltd., which is wholly owned by China National Shipbuilding Corporation Limited.
The contract stipulates that a large share of the gas tanker building capacity in the company’s shipyards will be reserved for Qatar Petroleum until the end of 2027. Qatar Petroleum’s program to build a fleet of LNG tankers is the largest of its kind in the history of this industry. The fleet will contribute to meeting the requirements of LNG shipping from local and international Qatar Petroleum projects, in addition to replacing some of Qatar’s existing fleet carriers.
Ship tracking data from Refinitiv showed that China imported record quantities of liquefied natural gas during the past period, ahead of Japan as the largest importer of fuel. According to Reuters; China imported 7.198 million tons of LNG in December, an increase of about 16% over November imports, while Japan’s imports reached 6.574 million tons in December, an increase of about 7% over the previous month. Analysts at Wood Mackenzie said that Japan would maintain its lead as the largest importer of liquefied gas in terms of annual volumes, but expected it to give up the lead to China in 2022.
Qatar’s exports of liquefied natural gas recorded a growth of about 6% last June, to continue to be the first in the world with about 6.7 million tons of gas last month, which were exported to about 10 global destinations, despite the challenges facing trade globally due to the spread of the new Corona virus (Covid-) 19) The state of lockdown economies. According to recent data, Qatar’s share of global LNG exports increased to about 26%, outperforming Australia, whose exports decreased by about 6%, while Russian exports recorded a decline of about 20%, to which maintenance work contributed to last May.
