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Region advances LNG projects with pace

30 August 2024

 

Global liquefied natural gas (LNG) liquefaction capacity is expected to more than double by 2028, potentially increasing from 473 million tonnes a year (t/y) in 2023 to 968 million t/y in 2028 through new build and expansion projects, according to a recent report by GlobalData.

North America dominates globally among the regions, in terms of new build and expansion liquefaction capacity growth, contributing around 54% of the total global capacity additions or 268 million t/y by 2028, GlobalData says in the report. 

The Middle East comes in at second position, followed by the Former Soviet Union, with capacity additions of 78 million t/y and 71 million t/y, respectively. 

Since the start of this decade, there has been a sharp increase in investments in the Middle East and North Africa (Mena), and particularly in the Gulf region, in projects to expand LNG production. Capital expenditure close to $45bn has been made by Mena hydrocarbon producers in the past 10 years on various LNG projects, mainly for output capacity building, MEED Projects data shows. Almost three-fourths of that spending took place in the past four years, and predominantly in the GCC.

A desire to cater to the steady growth expected in global LNG demand and dominate the global supply market is fuelling the wave of investments into large-scale production capacity expansions and terminal construction by Gulf players.

Qatar guns for top spot

Qatar has been jostling with the US and Australia for the status of being the largest LNG provider to the world for many years now. The three countries have all clinched the top spot, only to be unseated by another the very next month.

However, when its mammoth North Field LNG expansion programme begins to come online later this decade, Qatar will be able to consolidate its position as the world’s largest producer and exporter of LNG in the long term.

State enterprise QatarEnergy is understood to have spent almost $30bn on the two phases of the North Field LNG expansion programme, North Field East and North Field South, which will increase its LNG production capacity from 77.5 million tonnes a year (t/y) to 126 million t/y by 2028. Engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) works on the two projects are making steady progress.

QatarEnergy awarded the main EPC contracts in 2021 for the North Field East project, which is projected to increase LNG output to 110 million t/y by 2025. The main $13bn EPC package, which covers the engineering, procurement, construction and installation of four LNG trains with capacities of 8 million t/y, was awarded to a consortium of Japan’s Chiyoda Corporation and France’s Technip Energies in February 2021.

QatarEnergy awarded the $10bn main EPC contract for the North Field South LNG project, covering two large LNG processing trains, to a consortium of Technip Energies and Lebanon-based Consolidated Contractors Company (CCC) in May last year.

When fully commissioned, the first two phases of the North Field LNG expansion programme will contribute a total supply capacity of 48 million t/y to the global LNG market.

Qatar is, however, not stopping at that. QatarEnergy, in February, announced a third phase of its North Field LNG expansion programme. To be called North Field West, the project will further increase QatarEnergy’s LNG production capacity to 142 million t/y when it is commissioned by 2030.

The North Field West project will have an LNG production capacity of 16 million t/y, which is expected to be achieved through two 8 million t/y LNG processing trains, based on the two earlier phases of QatarEnergy’s LNG expansion programme. The new project derives its name from the western zone of Qatar’s North Field offshore gas reserve, from where it will draw feedstock for LNG production.

Oman moves up the ladder

Oman has been supplying LNG to customers, mainly in Asia, for many years now. Majority state-owned Oman LNG operates three gas liquefaction trains at its site in Qalhat, with a nameplate capacity of 10.4 million t/y. Due to debottlenecking, the company’s complex now has a production capacity of about 11.4 million t/y.

As recently as late July, the Omani government announced that Oman LNG will build a new train at its Qalhat LNG production complex in Sur, located in the sultanate’s South Al-Sharqiyah governorate. Oman LNG will perform the preliminary engineering study for the planned LNG train.

The LNG train will have an output capacity of 3.8 million t/y. When commissioned in 2029, it will increase Oman LNG’s total production capacity to 15.2 million t/y.

Aside from Oman LNG, France’s TotalEnergies has now committed itself to becoming a major LNG supplier in the sultanate. In partnership with state energy holding conglomerate OQ, TotalEnergies achieved final investment decision earlier this year for a major LNG bunkering and export terminal in Oman’s northern city of Sohar.

TotalEnergies leads a joint venture named Marsa LNG, which is the Sohar LNG terminal project developer. Marsa LNG was formed in December 2021 through an agreement between TotalEnergies and the sultanate’s state energy holding company OQ. The partners own 80% and 20% stakes, respectively.

Marsa LNG intends to develop an integrated facility consisting of upstream units that will draw natural gas feedstock from TotalEnergies’ hydrocarbon concessions in the sultanate, particularly from Blocks 10 and 11; an LNG bunkering terminal and storage units located in Sohar port; and a solar photovoltaic plant to power the LNG terminal.

The Marsa LNG terminal will have a single train with the capacity to process about 1 million t/y of natural gas into LNG. The bunkering terminal will mainly supply LNG as a marine fuel to vessels. Marsa LNG has picked France-based Technip Energies to perform EPC works on the estimated $1bn LNG terminal project.

Adnoc gives shape to ambitions

Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc) has been a relatively smaller LNG producer in comparison to its GCC peers. Adnoc Group subsidiary, Adnoc Gas, operates three large gas processing trains on Das Island. At its Das Island terminal, Adnoc Gas has an LNG liquefaction and export capacity of about 6 million t/y. The first and second trains were commissioned in the 1970s and have a combined output capacity of 2.9 million t/y. The third train came into operation in the mid-1990s, with a capacity of 3.2 million t/y.

Adnoc Gas’ LNG production and export capability, however, will receive a major fillip when a new greenfield terminal it has committed to developing in Ruwais, Abu Dhabi, comes online before the end of this decade. The planned LNG export terminal in Ruwais will have the capacity to produce about 9.6 million t/y of LNG from two processing trains, each with a capacity of 4.8 million t/y.

Adnoc awarded the full EPC contract and achieved the final investment decision for the LNG terminal complex in June. A consortium of France’s Technip Energies, Japan-based JGC Corporation and Abu Dhabi-owned NMDC Energy was awarded the EPC contract, worth $5.5bn.

Jordan takes a step forward

Jordan imports more than 90% of its oil, gas and refined product needs and therefore has a strong economic case for developing projects to boost its domestic hydrocarbon infrastructure, particularly for gas.

The country recently took a key step forward when Aqaba Development Corporation awarded the main EPC contract in August for a project to develop the Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah LNG onshore regasification facility at the port of Aqaba.

The contract was won by a consortium of Singapore-based AG&P and South Korea’s Gas Entec, along with their local partner, Jordan’s Issa Haddadin.

In a statement, Gas Entec said that the facility will have the capacity to process 720 million cubic feet a day of natural gas. 

“Jordan relies heavily on natural gas for its power and industrial needs, but faces challenges with supply reliability,” Gas Entec said.

“The new LNG terminal will provide Jordan with the flexibility to access LNG from various global suppliers, ensuring a stable and secure energy source.”

Global LNG demand set for steady growth

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Indrajit Sen

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    The project reflects Neom’s reprioritisation, which has seen the $500bn gigaproject shift from a speculative vision towards a delivery-focused industrial development.

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    There have been increasing signs that Oxagon is taking precedence over the rest of the giga-portfolio

    Conflict acceleration

    The reprioritisation was already under way before the region’s latest conflict began. PIF has spent the past two years pushing Neom to identify which elements of the gigaproject were fundamental and which were aspirational, a process that has as much to do with capital discipline as geopolitics.

    With the fund committing to direct roughly 80% of its $925bn portfolio towards domestic investment, while simultaneously funding Expo 2030 and the 2034 World Cup, Riyadh needed its flagship projects to start showing commercial returns rather than absorbing capital indefinitely.

    Oxagon, with a port, an export-ready hydrogen plant and land that could be leased to industrial tenants, was always the part of Neom best placed to answer that requirement, and the regional conflict that began in late February only accelerated the shift. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz to a fraction of its normal commercial throughput has hit Saudi Arabia’s oil export capacity hard and pushed the kingdom into a sizeable quarterly fiscal deficit.

    Riyadh has also had to contend with direct disruption to its own energy infrastructure, including the temporary closure of the East-West oil pipeline following drone strikes. Against that backdrop, an industrial city with its own deep-water port on the Red Sea, outside the Strait of Hormuz chokepoint, has taken on added strategic weight.

    Oxagon offers the kingdom a second maritime gateway, one that is not exposed to the same geopolitical risks as the Gulf coast terminals that have historically carried Saudi trade. For a government having to defend every riyal of committed capital spending, a project that can plausibly generate port fees, hydrogen export revenue and data-centre hosting income within the current decade is a far easier sell than a 170-kilometre linear city that is still taking shape.

    Construction ramps up

    The clearest evidence of that pivot is what has actually broken ground at Oxagon recently. At a time when Neom’s recent news flow has been about contract terminations, Oxagon’s has been about starts.

    The most visible of these is the artificial intelligence (AI) data-centre campus being developed by Humain, the PIF-owned AI company, in partnership with digital infrastructure developer DataVolt.

    Construction on the first 100MW of a planned 360MW first phase began this year, as part of a wider 1.5GW campus that builds on the companies’ original 2025 agreement, backed by roughly $5bn of investment. The facility is designed to draw on Oxagon’s pre-zoned industrial land, renewable power and subsea cable links to Europe and Africa, with the first 100MW targeted for service in 2028.

    For Neom, the project answers a question that has dogged the gigaproject for years: namely, what, beyond real estate and tourism, Oxagon actually sells.

    Connectivity is following the same pattern. Neom issued an expression of interest in September for consultancy services to plan a freight rail line of more than 400km linking the Port of Neom at Oxagon to Saudi Arabia Railways’ North-South Railway at the Al-Baseeta junction.

    The North-South network currently serves the kingdom’s phosphate and bauxite mining sector, running from Al-Jalamid and Baitha to the Gulf coast industrial cluster around Ras Al-Khair, Jubail and Dammam, with branches to Riyadh and the Jordanian border.

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    Cargo currently depends on road transport or an additional sea leg, a constraint that has limited the port’s usefulness beyond a regional hub.

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    Jafurah gas development phases

    As Aramco prepares to issue the main EPC tender for the Jafurah sixth expansion phase, it is also at an advanced bid evaluation stage for the programme’s fifth phase.

    MEED reported in August that China Petroleum Engineering & Construction Company (CPECC) had emerged as a frontrunner to win the main contract for the Jafurah fifth expansion phase, based on Aramco’s initial evaluation of proposals.

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    Aramco had set 19 July as the final deadline for proposals, and contractors submitted their bids by that date, MEED previously reported.

    The Saudi energy giant is understood to have issued the main EPC tender for the project in the first quarter of this year.

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    Along with evaluating bids for EPC works on the fifth expansion phase project at Jafurah, Aramco has also recently kicked off EPC works on the fourth expansion phase.

    MEED reported in April that Aramco had selected Indian contractor Larsen & Toubro Energy Hydrocarbon (L&TEH) as the main contractor for the fourth phase, which sources estimate could be valued at about $1.5bn.

    The main scope of work on Jafurah’s fourth expansion phase involves the EPC of two gas compression trains at the gas basin. Each plant will process up to 200 million cf/d.

    Aramco has issued only a draft letter of award for the project to L&TEH; however, based on this, the contractor has started EPC works. The official contract award and final investment decision are pending, according to sources.

    EPC work on the third phase of the Jafurah unconventional gas development programme is also advancing.

    In July 2024, Aramco issued a non-binding letter of intent to a consortium of Tecnicas Reunidas and Sinopec Group for the EPC contract for phase three. The value of the contract is estimated at $2.24bn.

    The objective of the third expansion phase is similar to that of the fourth phase. The main scope of work involves the EPC of three gas compression plants, each with a capacity of 200 million cf/d.

    The third phase scope of work also includes building a 230kV substation to power the new gas compression plants, and installing other utility units, piping systems and safety equipment.

    The selection of contractors for the third expansion phase came within weeks of Aramco officially awarding EPC contracts for the second phase, which aims to raise the field’s processing potential to up to 2 billion cf/d of raw gas.

    Aramco awarded 16 contracts, worth a combined total of about $12.4bn, for the second expansion phase on 30 June 2024.

    The EPC scope of work on that project involves the construction of gas compression facilities and associated pipelines, and the expansion of the Jafurah gas plant, including the construction of gas processing trains, utilities, sulphur and export facilities, Aramco said in a statement.

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    • Package 3 – gas compression units – $1bn: Larsen & Toubro Energy Hydrocarbon
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    • Riyas NGL package 6 – site preparation works – $107m: Mofarreh Alharbi & Partners (Saudi Arabia)
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    Aramco kickstarted EPC works on the first phase of the programme in November 2021 by awarding $10bn-worth of subsurface and EPC contracts.

    The Jafurah programme is central to Aramco’s goal of increasing gas production capacity. The target has recently been raised to 80%, with 2021 as the baseline, up from 60%, to meet rising domestic and global demand. The company expects life-cycle investment in Jafurah to exceed $100bn.

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    After 20 years, JMGC will lease the assets back to Aramco. JMGC will collect a tariff payable by Aramco in exchange for granting Aramco the exclusive right to receive, process and treat raw gas from the Jafurah resource base.

    Aramco will hold a 51% majority stake in JMGC, while the GIP-led consortium will hold the remaining 49%. Investors participating in the GIP-led consortium include Hassana Investment Company, the Arab Energy Fund and Aberdeen Investcorp Infrastructure Partners, as well as other institutional investors from North and Southeast Asia and the Middle East.

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    Indrajit Sen
  • Delivery unlocks gigaproject investment

    29 September 2026

     

    Register for MEED’s 14-day trial access 

    Completed infrastructure and open assets are making it easier to attract private developers and foreign investors to Saudi Arabia’s gigaprojects, said speakers at MEED’s Shaping Mega Projects conference in Riyadh on 28 September.

    Dale Chadwick, acting CEO of King Salman Park Foundation, said investor appetite had grown as construction advanced. The foundation has received 23 expressions of interest from private developers, and Chadwick said that number was increasing.

    “What the private sector is looking for in terms of investment is surety of what we’re doing,” he said. “As soon as a private developer comes in and sees what we’re doing, they’re blown away. The closer we get to completion, the greater the appetite.”

    He said interest from foreign direct investors was also rising, and that a deal the foundation expects to award soon involves foreign investment.

    The foundation times its private asset awards to follow infrastructure and landscaping works. “They don’t have to take the leap of faith that we are going to execute on our side of the equation,” said Chadwick. “They can see it.”

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    Saad said master developers acted as the catalyst, investing in infrastructure and anchor assets before the private sector joins. He said investors also wanted healthy supply and demand, and a market able to absorb commercial assets in phases.

    He said Diriyah had prioritised delivery over publicity. “People want to see to believe,” said Saad. “We are delivering on the ground, and when people come and visit, they’re pleasantly surprised.”

    Chadwick said developers also wanted flexibility, with some seeking more height or a different mix of uses. “We ourselves have a plan, but in order to make that more attractive, we have to be prepared to make adjustments as well,” he said.

    Ben Edwards, group head of cost, commercial and procurement at Red Sea Global, said the operating track record of The Red Sea and Amaala was now its strongest pitch to investors.

    "We’ve gone past the field of dreams approach of ‘if you build it, they will come',” he said. "We’ve built it now. The tourists are coming.”

    Edwards said Red Sea Global was at various stages of negotiation on several joint venture opportunities for future projects.

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    "I’m sure the PPP market will continue to expand into the different infrastructure sectors here, and then lead into other sectors, from schools to hospitals,” he said.

    He added that Red Sea Global’s environmental credentials were a selling point for investors.

    Don’t miss MEED’s SMP 2026.
    Secure your place as an attendee by clicking here, or email us at meedevents@meed.com

     

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    Colin Foreman
  • KBR seeks renewable energy contracts in Libya

    29 September 2026

     

    The US-headquartered technology and engineering company KBR is seeking renewable energy project contracts in Libya.

    Representatives from KBR met with Abdussalam Elansari, chairman of the Renewable Energy Authority of Libya, earlier this month to discuss project opportunities, sources said.

    The meeting with Elansari followed KBR’s opening of a new branch in Libya and its securing of several contract awards in the oil and gas sector.

    In March, KBR announced that it had been awarded a contract by Zallaf Exploration, Production & Refining of Oil & Gas Company to provide project management and technical services for the South Refinery Project in Libya’s southern city of Ubari.

    Under the terms of the contract, KBR will provide contract management, project management and supporting technical services throughout the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) phases of the project, according to a company statement.

    The EPC work is expected to be executed over a 50-month period.

    KBR is also carrying out work to re-evaluate the front-end engineering and design (feed) for the project to develop Libya’s J6 North Gialo field.

    In January, KBR signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the state-owned Libyan Post, Telecommunications & Information Technology Company.

    Under the MoU, KBR agreed to support efforts to develop and improve Libya’s communications infrastructure and enhance fifth-generation (5G) mobile networks in the country.

    KBR has previously provided engineering services for major national projects in Libya, but was forced to shut down its office in the country several times amid political instability and security issues.

    When the company was known as Brown & Root, it worked on the Great Man-Made River Project in Libya, which is widely recognised as the largest irrigation project in the world.

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