Qatari shipowner Nakilat is growing its fleet to 105 LNG carriers with the addition of nine supersize newbuildings worth close to $3bn that it has been selected to build for domestic producing giant QatarEnergy.
Doha-listed QatarEnergy confirmed today that it has signed a long-term agreement under which Nakilat will own and operate nine of its so-called Qatar China-Max or QC-Max vessels.
The 271,000-cbm ships, which account for half of the 18 QC-Max vessels booked by QatarEnergy under Phase 2 of its huge LNG shipbuilding programme, are on order at China’s Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding (Group) in China.
The vessels are priced at around $333m each and handover dates on the 18 ships stretch through into 2031.
TradeWinds reported in March that Nakilat was in line to be awarded a tranche of the QC-Max newbuildings.
Nakilat has already been selected by QatarEnergy as the owner and operator of 25 conventional-size LNG carrier newbuildings building at two yards in South Korea.
The Qatari company already owns and operates 69 LNG carriers and manages one floating storage and regasification unit along with four VLGCs.
At the start of this year, it contracted two 174,000-cbm LNG carrier newbuildings for its own account in January, along with four very large LPG/ammonia carriers.
With the addition of this year’s 25 conventional and nine QC-Max LNG carriers for QatarEnergy and its own two newbuildings, Nakilat will now boast a fleet of 105 LNG vessels — 36 of which are on order.
QatarEnergy said to date its LNG shipbuilding programme has comprised shipbuilding contracts and time-charter agreements for 104 conventional LNG carriers plus 18 QC-Max vessels totalling 122 ships in total.
The first newbuilding is due to be delivered at the end of the third quarter of 2024.
The deal with Nakilat, which had not featured under Phase 1 of QatarEnergy’s shipbuilding programme encompassing 60 LNG carriers, was signed on Wednesday by Qatar’s minister of state for energy affairs, Saad Al-Kaabi, who is also president and chief executive of QatarEnergy, and Nakilat chief executive Abdullah Al-Sulaiti at the energy company’s headquarters in Doha.
Al-Kaabi said: “With last month’s signing of the industry’s largest single shipbuilding contract ever, QatarEnergy is pushing ahead with the implementation of its historic LNG vessel expansion programme with full confidence that Nakilat and our selected international shipowners will ensure that our fleet is operated to the highest and most advanced safety, technical and environmental standards.”
QatarEnergy moved forward on the LNG shipbuilding programme in 2020, reserving up to 151 berths at four shipyards.
The producer aims to expand its fleet to accommodate its growth plans, which include increasing LNG production to 142 million tonnes per annum by 2030. This expansion is intended to support the rise in US volumes from the Golden Pass LNG project, in which it has a stake, as well as to meet fleet replacement needs.
