Confident of Beating Chinese Rivals
The Qatar government’s large-scale LNG shipbuilding campaign is expected to give the Korean shipbuilding industry a much-needed boost.
The Qatar government is going ahead with its ambitious LNG shipbuilding project as scheduled, despite the COVID-19 outbreak.
Saad Sherida al-Kaabi, Qatar’s energy minister and CEO of Qatar Petroleum (QP) reportedly said in a recent interview with a foreign media outlet on April 21 that Qatar has chosen a shipbuilder for the first order for LNG carriers, adding that contract signing is scheduled for April 22. He said Qatar will finish placing orders for at least 60 to 80 LNG carriers before the beginning of this summer.
Qatar's LNG shipbuilding project is likely to be the biggest project in the world shipbuilding industry for this year. As an LNG carrier costs US$200 million, the total order amount is estimated to reach at least US$12 billion.
Korean and Chinese shipbuilders are competing to land the Qatar LNG carrier order. The three Korean shipbuilders — Hyundai Heavy Industries, Samsung Heavy Industries, and Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering — and China's Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding have submitted tenders for the project. Japan's Kawasaki Heavy Industries is said to have withdraw from the competition at the last moment.
The three Korean shipbuilders are confident they can win the mega order as they are technologically superior to their Chinese rivals in LNG tanker construction. The three Korean shipbuilders swept orders for all of the 53 LNG carriers from Qatar in 2004.