QatarEnergy has awarded a $10 billion engineering, procurement, and construction contract to a grouping of French giant Technip Energies and Middle East-based Consolidated Contractors Company (CCC), for work on the giant liquefaction trains required for its North Field South (NFS) expansion project.

The state-owned Qatari giant confirmed the award on Tuesday and said it “comprises two LNG mega trains with a combined capacity of 16 million tonnes per annum”.

“The EPC contract’s value is around $10 billion, and its scope covers the construction of two mega LNG trains with a capacity of 8 million tpa each, with associated facilities for gas treatment, natural gas liquids recovery, as well as helium extraction and refining within Ras Laffan Industrial City,” the operator said.

The NFS project represents the second phase of Qatar’s ambitious LNG expansion project and together with North Field East (NFE, the first phase), it would scale up Qatar’s LNG production capacity to 126 million tpa, up from the existing 77 million tpa level.

The NFS award also confirms a recent Upstream report which tipped the Technip-led grouping as the front runner for the coveted project.

While Chiyoda was earlier understood to be a key part of the winning consortium, industry sources said that its workscope has been greatly scaled-down and the Japanese player is now likely to work as a subcontractor, providing engineering services.

Significant milestone

QatarEnergy chief executive Saad Sherida Al Kaabi said the award relates to “yet another significant milestone in the world’s largest LNG project”, reinforcing its commitment to meeting the global demand for natural gas”.

“The NFS project is a unique development that minimises its environmental footprint by design. It includes one of the largest carbon capture and sequestration [CCS] facilities and constitutes an important step towards achieving QatarEnergy’s target of more than 11 million tpa of CCS by 2035,” he said.

QatarEnergy said the low-carbon initiatives of the NFS project also include importing a significant amount of the project’s electrical power from the grid in the generated from solar energy.

It also includes a “jetty boil-off gas” recovery system, which will help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

“The project will also conserve five million cubic metres of water per year by recovering 75% of the plant’s tertiary water,” QatarEnergy said.

Qatar is spending up to $50 billion on two development phases at the giant gas field that together aim to boost the emirate’s capacity to 126 million tpa of LNG up from the current 77 million tpa level.

Qatargas, on behalf of parent company QatarEnergy, is carrying out the tender process for the NFS expansion project, comprising multiple onshore and offshore packages.

As well as the EPC of two nearly 8 million tpa LNG trains, the workscope involves the design of two additional trains of similar capacity as an option that can be taken up in future, sources said.

Last year, QatarEnergy selected energy giants Shell, TotalEnergies and ConocoPhillips as the three international partners for the NFS expansion.

The state giant holds a 75% interest in the NFS project and has signed partnership agreements with TotalEnergies, Shell and ConocoPhillips for the remaining 25%.

Investment decision

QatarEnergy earlier announced the final investment decision for the first phase of the NFE development with four giant EPC packages already under way.

A consortium of Chiyoda and Technip Energies was awarded a $13 billion contract in 2021 for liquefaction facilities for the $28.75 billion first phase of the NFE expansion project.

Along with the NFE trains package, QatarEnergy previously awarded a sizeable EPC contract to a consortium of Spain’s Tecnicas Reunidas and China’s Wison Engineering for work on the fourth package of the first phase of the North Field development.

This joint venture is working on the expansion of the sulphur handling, storage and loading facilities within Ras Laffan Industrial City.

In addition, the Qatari giant last year awarded a massive offshore package to Italy’s Saipem for work on the North Field Sustainability package, comprising two huge compression platforms.