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Total signs contract for 5.2 million mt/year of Qatari LNG
AFP
Houston
Petroleumworld.com 07 09 06
France's Total Friday finalized a 25-year deal to buy 5.2 million metric
tons of liquefied natural gas per year from the Qatargas 2 project and take a
one-sixth equity in a liquefaction train, paving the way for the company to
send future LNG supplies to France, Mexico, the US and the UK beginning about
2009, company officials said.A Total spokeswoman declined to provide financial terms of the deal.
Total's volume from Qatargas 2 would be equivalent to 657,000 Mcf/d. The
company would presumably send most of those supplies to the proposed
500,000-Mcf/d Altamira LNG terminal on Mexico's Gulf Coast, in which it owns a
25% stake; the proposed 8.25-Bcm/yr Fos Cavou terminal in France, in which it
owns a 33.3% stake and the proposed Sabine Pass LNG terminal in Cameron
Parish, Louisiana, in which it owns 1 Bcf/d of regasification capacity.Some of Total's supplies could also go to the South Hook LNG terminal
being built in Milford Haven, Wales, by Qatar Petroleum and ExxonMobil, the
spokeswoman said.It was unclear how this would be done given that Total does not own
capacity at the terminal, but presumably this could be easily accomplished
since Qatar Petroleum and ExxonMobil are the majority owners of Qatargas 2 and
are planning to take their supplies to South Hook.Altamira is scheduled to start operating in September, Fos Cavou in 2007
or 2008 and Sabine Pass in the first quarter of 2008.Qatargas 2 is a $12.8 billion liquefaction project that would produce
15.6 million mt/year from two trains.The tiny country of Qatar has increasingly flexed its muscle as a major
LNG supplier by taking equity in downstream projects and dictating where
supplies would be delivered, since its long-term contracts to the Atlantic
Basin are partly based on a netback of the price at which its regasified LNG
is sold.The Total spokeswoman declined to say what role Qatar would play in
telling it where to send its supplies. Qatar recently persuaded ConocoPhillips
to send future supplies to a terminal in Sabine, Texas, which Qatar Petroleum
was developing with ExxonMobil, rather than a terminal ConocoPhillips is
developing in Freeport, Texas.---Ron Nissimov, ron_nissimov@platts.com
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Platts 07 06 06
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