RasGas's Train 4 Is On Stream.

The 4.7m t/y Europe-bound Train 4 of Qatar's Ras Laffan Liquefied Natural Gas Company Limited (RasGas) came on stream late last month and its first shipments will reach their market in late December or early January. The train was officially inaugurated by the Qatari Emir, Shaikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani at the Ras Lafffan Industrial City in the north of the Qatari peninsula, near Qatar's North Field which is the biggest accumulation of natural gas in the world.

RasGas Managing Director Alexander Dodds said Train 4 will serve the company's European customers, adding it is among the largest LNG processing facilities in the world. The engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contracts for the onshore components of Train 4 were carried out through a joint venture Chiyoda Corp. and Mitsui & Co. of Japan, Snamprogetti of Italy and the local al-Mana Trading Co. Dubai-based J Ray McDermott Eastern Hemisphere executed the contract for the platforms and pipelines of its upstream element.

RasGas currently operates four LNG storage tanks and two more are under construction. The fifth storage tank, dedicated to the NGL recovery unit, will come on stream by end-January. All tanks are identical in capacity and can hold 140,000 cubic metres of LNG. There will be a number of additional storage tanks for LNG and NGL at Ras Laffan, where an industrial city will have massive GTL and petrochemicals producing complexes.

Trains 1 and 2 were RasGas' first onshore LNG units (for the RasGas-I venture, in which the partners are the state-owned Qatar Petroleum with 63%, ExxonMobil with 25%, a South Korean group led by Kogas with 5%, Itochu of Japan with 4% and Nissho-Iwai of Japan with 3%), together with a nameplate capacity of 6.6m t/y. Train 3, 4.7m t/y, was built for the RasGas-II venture (70% QP & 30% ExxonMobil) to fulfill the major part of a Sales Purchase Agreement (SPA) with Petronet LNG of India to supply 5m t/y of LNG for a period of 25 years. Both Trains 3 and 4 can each actually produce more than 5m t/y, as the first two trains can produce over 7m t/y - when necessary, such as the high demand and prices for spot LNG now in the US and Europe.

Train 4 is the first LNG unit developed with concurrent acid gas injection facilities to address environmental concerns and reduce sulphur production. Construction of RasGas-II Train 5 train, to be identical to Train 4, now is under way with completion expected in early 2007. RasGas-III's Trains 6 and 7, scheduled to service mainly the requirements of the US market, will come on stream in 2008 and 2009 respectively. RasGas-III is a JV of QP with 70% and ExxonMobil with 30%. The first of the RasGas series of JVs was formed in 2001.

RasGas and RasGas-II now have a combined capacity of 16.25m t/y. This has brought Qatari LNG capacity to 27.25m t/y but the real run could exceed 28m t/y in 2006.

Apart from Petronet LNG, RasGas-II has SPA commitments to Endesa of Spain's for 800,000 t/y for 20 years beginning in late 2005 and Edison for 4.7mn t/y for 25 years beginning in 2007. RasGas has been negotiating with Petronet since early 2005 to increase LNG supplies to India further. RasGas Managing Director Jerry Wolahan said at a petroleum conference in New Delhi on Jan. 17 there was enough demand in India to justify LNG and piped gas imports from several sources.

Petronet is saying it plans to raise the capacity of its LNG terminal in West India from 5m to 12.5m t/y by 2008. Petronet, which made its stock market debut in 2004, was launched by the Indian government to import LNG to meet the energy needs of a booming economy, and to build the terminals. Earlier in 2005, the firm said it was raising capacity at the Dahej terminal in Gujarat to 10m t/y, by building two new LNG storage tanks. The new capacity will raise Petronet's planned investment by Rs4 bn to Rs17 bn ($386.4m). India's state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp, Indian Oil Corp, Bharat Petroleum Corp and GAIL together own 50% of Petronet. Gaz de France has 10%. The remaining 40% is held by public and institutional investors. Petronet, looking to add 1.25m t/y of spot purchases, is planning to generate its first profits in 2006. Its turnover could double - if it manages to increased imports of Qatari LNG - to Rs40 bn (about $920m).

India's Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar on Nov. 21 said he was to ask Qatari Energy and Industry Minister Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiyah for an increase in LNG shipments but only if the price falls. Aiyar, speaking at an industry conference in Doha, said: "We have our wish list. We will ask for more Qatari LNG quantities when the price is more reasonable". He gave no details.

Attiyah, also at the conference, said: "We will have normal commercial discussions". RasGas-II's SPA with Petronet LNG Ltd. calls for supplies to India to reach 7.5m t/y when its Kochi terminal has been built by June 2009. But Petronet is reported to be seeking an additional 20m t/y of LNG from Qatar. Attiyah on Nov. 21 said: "When we have more LNG, India will be our first choice". This was a polite way of saying there will be no reduction of the price all the RasGas ventures are sold out on their LNG output capacity.

RasGas-III is a $10-12 bn integrated JV to have two 7.8m t/y trains built to supply the US market. As in the QatarGas-II, III and IV ventures, QP will be ExxonMobil's partner in the US LNG/regasification terminals for RasGas-II and RasGas III.

Together with debottlenecking the three RasGas ventures will have a total capacity of 35.75m t/y by 2012 but will be able to produce over 41.5m t/y before 2014. The four QatarGas ventures will also be able to produce over 41.5m t/y by then. These will make Qatar by far the biggest LNG exporter in the world - with the 83m t/y total being equivalent to 2m b/d of crude oil. By then Qatar will also have become the world's biggest exporter of ultra-clean fuels from GTL.

At the inauguration ceremony, Minister Attiyah who is also Qatar's second deputy premier said: "The safe start-up of RasGas [-II's] fourth LNG train bears testimony to our unwavering commitment to execute projects efficiently, professionally and in full compliance with all local and international safety measures and procedures. Thanks to this commitment, Qatar today is at the forefront of the global LNG industry". Yousef Hussain Kamal, minister of finance and RasGas chairman, added: "The successful completion of Train 4 on schedule and within budget is a remarkable achievement considering the continued activities RasGas undertakes in fulfilling its existing...[SPAs]".

RasGas and its contractors achieved world class safety performance with 76.5m man-hours worked with a total recordable incident rate of 0.31. Chiyoda Corp., now part of the Mitsubishi group, is a leader in the LNG plant business.

Qatar's First GTL-Fuelled Car Unveiled: QP and Shell recently presented the first gas-to-liquids (GTL)-fuelled car to run in Qatar. Shell's synthetic gas-derived fuel was used in neat form in an unmodified 4.2 litre Audi A8 turbo diesel to demonstrate a clean, practical alternative fuel which can be used in conventional diesel engines.

Free of sulphur and aromatics, GTL fuel is colourless, odourless and cleaner than conventional refinery-produced diesel. A considerable number of trials around the world have confirmed that it significantly reduces local emissions. Minister Attiyah said: "This is truly a symbolic event for Qatar in its quest to reach the summit of the global GTL industry. GTL represents cutting edge technology and fuels that provide energy-saving and environmentally friendly options for markets around the world".

Malcolm Brinded, E&P executive director of Shell added: "We are delighted to team up with Qatar Petroleum in promoting GTL technology. We thank Audi for contributing to this event by providing a top performance vehicle to demonstrate the use of GTL fuel.

"Qatar's contribution to the development of the GTL industry is unprecedented and Shell is proud to be an enabler of this enormous achievement".

Shell is contributing to Qatar's efforts to become the global capital of GTL by developing the Pearl JV, which on completion will be the largest GTL plant in the world (see survey of Qatar in Nos. 9-12).