QatarEnergy Targets 2027 NFE LNG Launch as Ras Laffan Repairs Stretch to Three Years

QatarEnergy expects the first train of its North Field East LNG expansion to begin operations in the first half of 2027, according to Reuters. The train is designed to produce 8 million tonnes per year within a project totaling 32 million tonnes per year.

The timing of the remaining North Field East trains will depend on the Strait of Hormuz crisis. That disruption has delayed deliveries of equipment needed for the expansion, leaving the sequence for additional train startups uncertain.

Saad al-Kaabi, QatarEnergy chief executive officer and Qatari minister of energy affairs, discussed the project schedule at the Qatar Economic Forum Special Edition in New York. He linked the uncertainty surrounding later trains directly to delayed equipment deliveries.

Al-Kaabi expects “a few” North Field East trains to begin production as 2027 progresses, Reuters reported. The first train therefore remains scheduled for the first half of the year, with additional capacity expected to follow during 2027.

The North Field East development forms one part of QatarEnergy’s broader North Field expansion program. Its planned 32 million tonnes per year of capacity will be joined by production from the North Field South expansion.

QatarEnergy expects output from the 16 million tonne per year North Field South project to begin in 2028. The wider expansion program also includes the North Field West project, alongside North Field East and North Field South.

Together, the three projects are expected to raise Qatar’s LNG production capacity from the current 77 million tonnes per year to 142 million tonnes per year. The planned increase places the North Field developments at the center of QatarEnergy’s capacity program.

At the same time, QatarEnergy faces an extended repair program at Ras Laffan following damage to Qatar’s natural gas infrastructure during the Iran war. Repairs to two damaged LNG trains are expected to take 3 years.

Those two Ras Laffan LNG trains account for 17% of Qatar’s production capacity. A damaged gas to liquids train is expected to return to service sooner, with its restart targeted for the first quarter of 2027.

The condition of the Strait of Hormuz remains critical to QatarEnergy’s operating outlook as well as its expansion schedule. Al-Kaabi said Qatar could restore normal operations relatively quickly once movement through the waterway resumes.

“As for resuming operations,” al-Kaabi said, “Qatar is ready to resume normal operations within a few weeks of the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.” His remarks tied that operational recovery directly to reopening the strait.

Al-Kaabi thanked Qatar’s neighbors for their willingness to permit construction of a gas pipeline across their territories that would bypass Hormuz. However, he described such a pipeline as “redundant” and said it made “no economic sense” given the North Field expansion already underway.

He also rejected the notion that the Strait of Hormuz had become obsolete. Al-Kaabi said the waterway “carries trade in all products, not only oil and gas, to and from all its adjacent countries” and stressed the need for normal movement through it.

Beyond Qatar, the company’s 18 million tonne per year Golden Pass LNG joint venture with ExxonMobil Corp. is expected to reach full capacity in 2028. That milestone is tied to the startup of Trains 2 and 3.

QatarEnergy is also advancing the 2 million tonne per year Golden Triangle Polymers joint venture with Chevron Phillips Chemical Co. LLC. Al-Kaabi said the project had started commissioning and would begin operations “in the next few weeks.”

Both Golden Pass LNG and Golden Triangle Polymers are in Jefferson County, Texas. Their schedules add two United States projects to QatarEnergy’s broader slate of LNG and industrial developments approaching startup or full capacity.