Japan’s Chiyoda Corporation has been selected to execute the front-end engineering and design (Feed) of the onshore facilities of the North Field expansion project.

Chiyoda will provide the basic design for the addition of three 7.8 million tonnes a year (m t/y) mega-trains of liquefied natural gas (LNG) production with associated pre-investment to add a fourth LNG train in the future.

The onshore facilities will receive approximately 4.6 billion standard cubic feet a day of feed gas from the southern sector of Qatar's North Field. The processing of the feed gas is expected to produce approximately 3,000 tonnes a day of ethane as feedstock for a petrochemical plant.

Processing of the gas is also estimated to produce 185,000 barrels a day of condensates, and 8,500 tonnes a day of liquefied petroleum gas for sale into world markets, in addition to approximately 12 tonnes a day of pure helium.

The onshore facilities will produce an additional 23m tonnes a year (t/y) of LNG, which will raise Qatar’s production from 77m t/y to 100m t/y. Qatargas, the operator of the North Field development, hopes to produce the first LNG from the expansion project in 2023.