Daewoo Shipbuilding, Samsung Heavy win LNG carriers order from Qatar

South Korea’s major shipbuilders Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co. and Samsung Heavy Industries Co. won orders for six liquefied natural gas (LNG) carriers from Qatar.

QatarEnergy, formerly Qatar Petroleum, said on Nov. 7 that it has placed the first batch of LNG shipbuilding orders with those shipyards, consisting of four vessels from Daewoo and two from Samsung.

“These orders, and those that will follow in the near future, constitute a significant part of our program to expand Qatar’s LNG fleet to meet the requirements of our LNG expansion projects, our existing fleet replacement, as well as our LNG trading arm,” said Saad al-Kaabi, its chief executive and Qatari minister of state for energy, in a statement.

Qatar is increasing its LNG production capacity to 126 million tons a year by 2027 from the current 77 million tons through the North Field expansion project, which will require more vessels.

The latest orders came in the form of QatarEnergy’s declaration of its ship construction options with Daewoo and Samsung under its reservation of shipyard capacity agreements signed in May 2020, according to the Qatari state-owned petroleum company.

QatarEnergy signed the agreements with South Korea’s three major shipbuilders including those two shipyards and Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering Co. for more than 100 LNG carriers.

Write to Jeong Min Nam at peux@hankyung.com
Jongwoo Cheon edited this article.