QatarEnergy has announced the selection of the UK/Dutch Shell as a partner in the estimated $28.75bn North Field East (NFE) expansion project.

QatarEnergy and Shell will become partners in a new joint venture (JV), in which QatarEnergy will hold a 75 per cent interest while Shell will hold the remaining 25 per cent. The JV will own 25 per cent of the entire NFE project, which includes 4 LNG trains with a combined nameplate LNG capacity of 32 million tons a year (mt/y).

The partnership agreement was signed on 5 July during a ceremony at QatarEnergy’s headquarters in Doha by Saad Sherida al-Kaabi, Minister of State for Energy Affairs and the President and CEO of QatarEnergy, and Ben van Beurden, CEO, Shell.

In a statement, QatarEnergy said this agreement is the fifth and last in a series of partnership announcements for NFE project, which will raise Qatar’s LNG export capacity from the current 77 mt/y to 110 mt/y.

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Qatar has a long history of engaging with international oil companies for its LNG programme. Since 1984 it has worked with international players from Europe, the US and the Far East.