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Qatar’s new $8bn investment spices up global LNG race

13 March 2026

 

In the midst of the conflict between Iran and the US and Israel, which has spilled over into the GCC region, QatarEnergy has temporarily halted production of liquefied natural gas (LNG) in the country and declared force majeure on LNG shipments after its energy assets came under attack.

When the fog of war clears, however, and the Strait of Hormuz reopens to oil and gas flows, the global economy will look to QatarEnergy to swiftly restore regular LNG cargoes in order to bring gas prices down from record highs.

Beyond that short-term role, the recent $8bn investment the Qatari giant has committed to building two new LNG processing trains will also cement its position as a reliable long-term supplier, while further intensifying the race among global LNG producers to carve out larger market shares in an increasingly gas-hungry world.

North Field West – a game changer

The state-owned company has progressed from the front-end engineering and design (feed) phase to the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) stage of its North Field West LNG project at pace.

It awarded the main EPC contract for the scheme – covering two LNG processing trains with a total capacity of 16 million tonnes a year (t/y) – to a joint venture comprising France’s Technip Energies, Greece/Lebanon-based Consolidated Contractors Company (CCC) and Gulf Asia Contracting on 25 February.

The contract, estimated to be worth $8bn, was awarded just a month after Japan-based Chiyoda Corporation won the project’s feed contract.

Such a short interval between the feed and EPC phases for a project as large as North Field West LNG would typically be considered improbable. Industry sources suggest QatarEnergy may have been in discussions with Chiyoda and the Technip Energies-CCC consortium for at least a year regarding the feed and EPC contracts, respectively – particularly given the two-year gap between the project’s announcement in February 2024 and the start of the EPC phase.

Chiyoda, Technip Energies and CCC are also involved in the first two phases of QatarEnergy’s $40bn North Field LNG expansion project. A consortium of Chiyoda and Technip Energies is executing EPC works on the North Field East project, which involves the construction of four LNG trains with a combined capacity of 32 million t/y, following the award of a $13bn contract in February 2021. Meanwhile, a Technip Energies-CCC consortium is carrying out EPC works on two 7.8 million t/y LNG trains as part of the North Field South project, having secured a $10bn contract in May 2023.

More significant, however, is the speed with which QatarEnergy is advancing its strategic objective of reaching a total LNG production capacity of 142 million t/y by the end of the decade, from 77.5 million t/y at present.

With all three phases of the North Field LNG expansion programme now under EPC execution – and North Field East scheduled for commissioning later this year – QatarEnergy appears firmly on track to become one of the world’s largest LNG suppliers over the long term, reinforcing Qatar’s economic future in the process.

US domination

While QatarEnergy is on course to increase its LNG production capacity by 83% by 2030 through the overall North Field LNG expansion programme, it is still some way behind the US, which is set to account for over half of the total global LNG liquefaction projects by 2030.

There are 40 new-build and expansion LNG liquefaction projects planned or under way in the US, according to UK analytics firm GlobalData. Among these, two projects stand out.

The first is the Rio Grande LNG production project, being developed by NextDecade in Texas, on the US Gulf of Mexico coast. Up to 10 processing trains are planned for the complex, the first three of which are in the EPC phase.

NextDecade achieved the final investment decision on the fourth and fifth trains at the facility, estimated to cost $6.7bn each, in September and October last year. The company has awarded EPC contracts to build all five trains at the Rio Grande facility to US-based Bechtel.

On the investments front, the overseas-focused energy investment vehicle of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc), XRG, acquired an indirect 11.7% stake in the first phase of the project from Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP), part of US asset manager BlackRock, in September last year. In February 2026, XRG entered into another transaction with GIP to raise its overall participation in the Rio Grande LNG project by acquiring additional 7.6% equity interests in trains four and five of the scheme.

Additionally, as part of that transaction, another Adnoc Group subsidiary, Adnoc Trading, entered into a 20-year offtake agreement with NextDecade last year to purchase 1.9 million t/y of LNG from Rio Grande train four, on a free-on-board basis at a Henry Hub-indexed price. France’s TotalEnergies and Saudi Aramco are the other LNG offtakers for train four.

Separately, the Commonwealth LNG facility in the US state of Louisiana has also received backing from Abu Dhabi. Expected to start operations in 2030, the facility is designed to produce up to 9.5 million metric t/y of LNG.

Commonwealth LNG is a project of US-based alternative asset manager Kimmeridge Energy Management Company and Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund Mubadala Investment Company through their joint venture Caturus.

Caturus was formed in August 2025 when Kimmeridge announced a rebranding that saw Commonwealth LNG and Kimmeridge’s upstream operations combined under a new integrated platform. At the same time, Mubadala acquired a 24.1% equity stake in Caturus, providing financial backing for the new entity to proceed with the Commonwealth LNG project.

Also in August, Caturus awarded Technip Energies the contract for EPC works on the Commonwealth LNG project. The French contractor had previously performed the project’s feed work.

Moreover, Aramco subsidiary Aramco Trading signed a 20-year agreement to buy 1 million metric t/y of LNG from the Commonwealth LNG facility in February, increasing offtake deals secured by Caturus to cover 8 million metric t/y of the project’s total planned output capacity.

Positive outlook

The growth in LNG production capacity in the US, as well as in wider North America, is driven by several factors, including abundant natural gas reserves, the shale gas revolution and advancements in hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling.

While it might be a challenge for QatarEnergy to compete with US players in combined liquefaction capacity, its strength and success will lie in clinching long-term offtake deals with customers in Asia, where the bulk of global LNG demand growth is expected.

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Indrajit Sen

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