Qatar Gas Transport Company to acquire another 10 LNG Carriers

Just two months ago Nakilat ordered 6 QMax vessels for charter to QGII, meaning that Nakilat now has 16 LNG carriers on order.

The QMax vessels, with a capacity of approximately 265,000 m³ and a delivered cost in the region of US$300 million, will be the largest LNG carriers ever to be constructed and the total of 16 Qflex and QMax vessels represents an investment by QGTC in the region of US$5 billion. In addition to these 16 LNG carriers of which QGTC will own 100%, the company owns 30-60% in another 28 LNG carriers delivered or on order to service Qatar LNG projects.

According to Muhammad Ghannam, QGTC's Acting Managing Director, these ships will be ordered from Korean shipyards Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering, Hyundai Heavy Industries and Samsung Heavy Industries. These state-of-the art vessels, once delivered from the shipyards, will be placed on long term charter to QG3 beginning January 2009. QG3 intends to use the LNG carriers to transport LNG from its train number 6 which will have a production of approximately 8 million tons/year.

Says Ghannam,

"It has always been the goal of QGTC to fully own and eventually operate LNG carriers for Qatari projects. We see the three QMax and 7 QFlex ships for QG3 as the next step towards our ambitions to put QGTC at the pinnacle of world LNG shipping. We expect to order more vessels over the next 8-10 months to achieve our goal of being the world's largest LNG ship owner.The ships will incorporate the latest technology for safe, reliable and cost-effective transportation of LNG over many years, and are the result of several years of engineering design work and testing."

The ships will be powered by twin slow speed diesel engines and will have full scale on-board re-liquefaction plants which maximize LNG deliveries to QG3's Customers. Modification of existing shore side technology to onboard use allowed the vessels to use more efficient slow speed diesel and depart from the traditional but less efficient steam turbine.