Saipem picks Chinese player for Qatar-bound offshore gas platform

Industrial machine manufacturer Servizi Energia Italia, a subsidiary of Italy’s Saipem, has hired China’s engineering, procurement, and construction company, Bomesc Offshore Engineering, to build a compression facility for an offshore natural gas project off the northern coast of Qatar.

Thanks to the inking of a $220 million deal with Saipem’s subsidiary, Bomesc will take part in the development of an offshore energy project in Qatar, according to Chinese state-owned financial news agency, Yicai Global. 

This comes after Saipem disclosed the award of a contract worth approximately $4.5 billion in October 2022 for the North field production sustainability offshore compression complexes project. At the time, the Italian giant described the deal as the largest single offshore contract by value in its history.

Awarded by Qatargas, now QatarEnergy LNG, the multi-billion dollar deal enables Saipem to handle the engineering, procurement, fabrication, and installation of two offshore natural gas compression complexes aimed at sustaining the production of the North field, including two of the largest fixed steel jacket compression platforms ever built, flare platforms, interconnecting bridges, living quarters and interface modules.

The award of the multi-million contract to Bomesc follows the signing of definitive agreements between QatarEnergy and China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) for a 27-year supply of LNG to China and partnership in the North Field East (NFE) LNG expansion project.

This is similar to the agreements that QatarEnergy inked with China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (Sinopec) for the supply of LNG and partnership in the NFE expansion project.

The North field is one of the largest single non-associated natural gas fields in the world, which is operated by QatarEnery LNG and lies off the northeast shore of the Qatar peninsula.

Qatar’s energy sector is positioned for further growth, as confirmed by the country’s plans to boost its LNG production from 77 million metric tonnes per annum (mtpa) to 126 million mtpa by 2027.

This was also confirmed by Wood Mackenzie, which recently outlined that the competition in delivering the next wave of LNG growth would be fierce, though Qatar and the U.S., with 40% of global supply between them, would be the front-runners by a mile.

Both of these LNG giants have an abundance of low-cost gas, competitive pricing, and astute commercial partnering, thus, their combined market share is expected to exceed 60% by 2040.