TotalEnergies has been selected as the first international partner in the 16 million ton per annum (MTPA) North Field South (NFS) LNG project in Qatar and will invest around $1.5 billion in the planned expansion.
The French energy giant was earlier selected as the first partner for the 32 MTPA North Field East (NFE) liquefied natural gas (LNG) project.
TotalEnergies will obtain a 9.375 percent participating interest in the NFS project – out of a total 25% interest available for international partners – while the national company QatarEnergy will hold the remaining 75 percent.
Through its combined participating interests in NFE (6.25 percent) and NFS, TotalEnergies will add 3.5 MTPA of LNG production to its growing worldwide LNG portfolio by 2028, in line with its objective to increase the share of natural gas in its sales mix to 50 percent by 2030. The projects promise to ramp up gas supplies to energy-hungry European markets.
The project is expected to be one of the most cost-competitive LNG projects worldwide. Together, NFE and NFS form the wider North Field Expansion project to increase LNG production from the North Field, adding 48 MTPA to Qatar’s export capacity and bringing it to 126 MTPA by 2028. The upstream part of the project will have five platforms, 50 wells and gas pipelines to the onshore processing plant. Downstream, there will be two 8 MTPA liquefaction trains.
Patrick Pouyanné, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of TotalEnergies, said: “Following North Field East, we are truly honored and proud that Qatar has once again chosen TotalEnergies to be QatarEnergy’s first partner in North Field South. By further developing its natural gas resources through this expansion project, which ranks among the world’s most competitive in terms of costs and low emissions, Qatar will make a major contribution to increasing LNG supply in the years to come.
“We consider Qatar as a long-term strategic country for TotalEnergies and this latest addition to our portfolio marks an important step toward our low-carbon LNG growth objectives, a key pillar of TotalEnergies’ transformation into a sustainable multi-energy company. It will also further strengthen our ability, together with Qatar, to support Europe’s energy security.”
Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, Qatar’s Minister of State for Energy Affairs, the President and CEO of QatarEnergy, said: “QatarEnergy is moving forward, with the support of our partners, to help meet growing global demand for cleaner energy, of which LNG is the backbone for a serious and realistic energy transition.
“We are committing significant investments to lower the carbon intensity of our energy products, which constitutes a key pillar of QatarEnergy’s sustainability and energy transition strategy.”
Reuters reported last week that German utilities RWE and Uniper were close to striking long-term deals to buy LNG from the NFE to help replace Russian gas.
“Uniper and RWE have a great relationship with us, we have been dealing with them for the last 20 years, we have contracts with some of them,” Kaabi had told Reuters last week. “So, we are talking with both of them and there isn’t anything that I can say that is different from what I always say on commercial contracts, which is I don’t discuss them.”
TotalEnergies is the world’s third-largest low-carbon LNG company, with a global market share of around 10 percent and a global portfolio of nearly 50 Mt/y by 2025.
Follow us on
