Minister of State for Energy Affairs, the President and CEO of QatarEnergy H E Saad Sherida Al Kaabi and CEO of Eni Claudio Descalzi during the agreement signing at the QatarEnergy headquarters.
Doha: QatarEnergy yesterday announced that it has selected Italian energy giant Eni as its second international partner in the $28.75bn North Field East (NFE) expansion project, the world’s largest LNG development.
The NFE project, also billed as the single largest project in the history of the LNG industry, is expected to start production by early 2026 and will expand Qatar’s LNG production capacity from the current 77 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) to 110 mtpa.
Minister of State for Energy Affairs, the President and CEO of QatarEnergy H E Saad Sherida Al Kaabi and CEO of Eni Claudio Descalzi signed the 25-year partnership agreement yesterday at a special ceremony which was also attended by senior executives from both companies at the QatarEnergy headquarters.
Pursuant to the agreement, QatarEnergy and Eni will become partners in a new joint venture company (JV), in which QatarEnergy will hold a 75 percent interest while Eni will hold the remaining 25 percent interest. The JV will in turn own 12.5 percent of the entire NFE project, whose 4 mega LNG trains have a combined nameplate capacity of 32 mtpa.
Speaking during the event, Minister Al Kaabi highlighted QatarEnergy’s relations with Eni, and welcoming the new partnership, he said: “I would like to welcome Eni as a new member of Qatar’s LNG family. This agreement will strengthen our mutual cooperation for decades to come. It is an important addition to a series of partnerships with Eni, which include upstream exploration projects in a number of locations around the world as QatarEnergy expands its international footprint.
“I would like to thank the Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani for his wise leadership and for his unwavering support to Qatar’s energy sector,” the Minister added.
He also reiterated the NFE project’s economic competitiveness, financial resilience, and unique and advanced environmental characteristics, including its significant carbon capture and sequestration technologies and capacity to reduce the project’s overall carbon footprint to the lowest levels possible. These features also provided leading international energy companies with a strong incentive to be part of the tender, which covered double the offered equity, the Minister said.
The new LNG partnership signed yesterday also marks Eni’s first ever entry into Qatar’s upstream sector.
Also speaking during the event, Descalzi stressed that LNG is the only hydrocarbon that can accompany the global energy transition.
He added: “We are honoured and delighted for having been selected as partner in the North Field East expansion project. As a newcomer joining this world leading LNG project, we feel the privilege and the responsibility of being a strategic partner of choice for the State of Qatar. This agreement is a significant milestone for Eni and fits our objective to diversify into cleaner and more reliable energy sources in line with our decarbonisation strategy. Eni looks forward to working with QatarEnergy on this project to positively contribute to increasing worldwide gas security of supply”.
More partners are slated to join the NFE Project, with relevant announcements expected to be made soon.
