H E Dr Mohammed bin Saleh Al Sada (right) and Sam Laidlaw exchanging documents during the signing ceremony yesterday.
DOHA: Centrica, the parent company of British Gas, yesterday announced it has entered into a four-and-a-half-year supply agreement with Qatargas for the purchase of up to three million tonnes of LNG per year.
The £4.4bn deal was signed by H E Dr Mohammed bin Saleh Al Sada, Minister of Energy & Industry and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Qatargas, and Centrica Chief Executive Sam Laidlaw. Mark Hanafin, Managing Director of Centrica also took part in the signing ceremony in Doha.
Qatargas said Qatar Liquefied Gas Company Limited (4) (Qatargas 4) and Centrica LNG Company Limited signed the flexible sales and purchase agreement (SPA) for four-and-a-half years starting June 2014.
The LNG will come from Qatargas 4 (Train 7), a joint venture between Qatar Petroleum and Shell, and will be delivered to the Isle of Grain LNG Terminal in the UK.
Dr Al Sada welcomed the SPA as “another achievement in Qatar’s standing as a reliable provider of clean energy”. The Minister said: “We are very pleased with this agreement as it further strengthens the existing relationship between Qatargas, the largest LNG producer in the world and Centrica, the largest gas supplier to the domestic gas market in the UK.”
“Qatar continues to play a key role in supporting countries to diversify their sources of energy around the world” he added.
Qatargas’ Chief Executive Officer Khalid bin Khalifa Al Thani commented: “I am very proud that Qatargas continues to build strong long term relationships with its customers. The signing of this agreement represents our further commitment to have Centrica as a partner for the UK market which continues to be one of the most important LNG markets in Europe.”
Sam Laidlaw said: “We are delighted that we continue to deepen our relationship with Qatargas. It is vital that the UK has a diverse range of sources of supply to meet its energy requirements and in a competitive international market, contracts like this underpin the UK’s access to global LNG supplies for the benefit of British customers.”
Executive representatives from Qatar Petroleum, Qatargas 4 and Centrica attended the ceremony, which was held in Doha at The Grand Heritage Hotel.
Qatargas and Centrica’s partnership was established in 2010 with the signature of a Master Sales and Purchase Agreement (MSPA) and in April 2011 under the MSPA the Isle of Grain LNG Terminal received a Q-Max LNG vessel for the very first time. Subsequently the initial SPA between Qatargas and Centrica was signed in 2011 to supply up to 2.4 million tonnes per annum for duration of three years.
“The previous contract Centrica signed with Qatargas comes to an end in June 2014. With increasing global competition from emerging economies for LNG, and declining North Sea production, this transaction secures important gas supplies for Centrica and the UK to December 2018”, Centrica said in a separate press note.
The UK’s Energy Minister Michael Fallon, who was this week in Qatar, welcomed the news saying: “Long term deals of this kind with reliable suppliers like Qatar are vital for our future energy security”.
The Peninsula
