QatarEnergy Signs Deal to Buy Up to 4 Million Tonnes a Year Through 2054
Key Facts
QatarEnergy has signed agreements to buy up to 4 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas a year from Cheniere, with expected supplies to begin in 2031 and continue through 2054, according to a statement from the Qatari company. Cheniere said the agreements divide volumes equally between its Sabine Pass and Corpus Christi facilities, at 2 million tonnes a year from each. The agreements are a long-term contract to secure supplies from the United States, while QatarEnergy said the purchase "will expand and diversify our global LNG portfolio." Deliveries will begin years after the agreements were signed and cover a period through the end of 2054. The deal comes as QatarEnergy seeks to strengthen its supply and trading portfolio and serve its customers, according to its statement.
The two companies’ statements describe the volumes differently: QatarEnergy says it has contracted to buy up to 4 million tonnes a year, while Cheniere specifies 2 million tonnes from each facility. One million tonnes a year of the Sabine Pass share is conditional on a positive final investment decision on the project’s first phase. Part of the volume is therefore tied to completing a specific investment step, while the statement cites no similar condition for the Corpus Christi share. Cheniere Chief Executive Jack Fusco said the company’s track record in operations and reliability, along with its long-term customer focus, "laid the foundation for this important commercial relationship." The company framed the agreement as part of its commercial relationship with QatarEnergy and did not disclose a financial value for the contract.
The sale terms provide for delivery free on board at the port of loading, with pricing linked to the Henry Hub benchmark plus a fixed fee, Cheniere said. The formula ties the purchase price to the benchmark for natural gas, along with a fixed fee, according to the company’s description of the agreement’s terms. The statement gives neither the fixed fee nor further details of the pricing formula. The final investment condition applies to 1 million tonnes a year from Sabine Pass, tying that volume to progress on the facility’s expansion. Cheniere says the first phase is designed to produce more than 6 million tonnes a year and includes the seventh liquefaction train and a boil-off gas re-liquefaction unit.
Cheniere says the Sabine Pass expansion will be carried out in phases, with the project’s expected peak production capacity potentially reaching about 20 million tonnes a year. The company estimates that total Sabine Pass capacity could exceed 50 million tonnes a year after the expansion; that is a projected outcome, not current capacity. The first phase depends on a positive final investment decision, to which Cheniere tied part of its agreement with QatarEnergy. In May 2026, one of its subsidiaries signed a lump-sum, turnkey engineering, procurement and construction contract with Bechtel for the first phase and authorized early engineering and procurement work under a limited notice to proceed. The Bechtel contract provides implementation context for the phase, but does not remove the final investment decision condition in the supply agreement.
Cheniere estimated that its operating capacity at Sabine Pass and Corpus Christi was about 56 million tonnes a year when the agreement was announced, in addition to about 5 million tonnes a year of expected capacity under construction. These figures place the QatarEnergy agreement within an existing production base, alongside expansions not yet included in operating capacity. Separately, regarding Qatar’s supplies, QatarEnergy Chief Executive Saad al-Kaabi said in March that damage to LNG facilities would keep 12.8 million tonnes a year of capacity offline for 3 to 5 years. Reuters reported the remarks on 11 September in a story about QatarEnergy’s talks on U.S. supplies. The duration was an estimate al-Kaabi had announced earlier, not a new assessment issued in September.
Cheniere scheduled its third-quarter results announcement for 29 October 2026, before the market opens, followed by an investor call at 11:00 a.m. U.S. Eastern time. The upcoming date is part of the company’s financial disclosure calendar, following the supply agreement announcement in October. The statement gives the results release date and the time of the investor call, without details of expected results. The next financial disclosure is therefore the company’s next announced milestone after the agreement.