DOHA - Qatar has agreed to supply the China National Petroleum Corporation natural gas for 27 years, the Gulf country’s energy minister said yesterday.

Qatar will supply four million tons a year, said energy minister Saad al-Kaabi, QatarEnergy’s CEO, seven months after a deal with the same terms was struck with China’s Sinopec.

“Qatar will supply four million tons annually of natural gas from the North Field East Expansion Project to China over a period of 27 years,” Kaabi told a signing ceremony in Doha.

“This will become the second LNG (liquefied natural gas) sale and purchase agreement to China within the North Field East Expansion Project.”

The two deals are the longest seen in the liquefied gas industry.

By expanding the exploitation of North Field, which has the world’s biggest natural gas reserves and extends under the Gulf into Iranian territory, Qatar is raising its LNG production by 60%-plus to 126 million tons a year by 2027.

Asian countries led by China, Japan and South Korea are the main market for Qatar’s gas, which has been increasingly sought by European countries since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine early last year.

- Nampa/AFP