QatarEnergy Signs Two Deals to Buy 4 Million Tonnes of LNG a Year Through 2054

Key Facts

Two Cheniere subsidiaries announced agreements to sell a total of 4 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas a year to QatarEnergy through 2054, in a deal that expands the Qatari company’s purchases of U.S. supplies. Cheniere said the agreements cover delivery of the contracted volume through its Sabine Pass and Corpus Christi facilities. QatarEnergy said the facilities are in Louisiana and Texas on the U.S. Gulf Coast. Deliveries are scheduled to begin in 2031, according to QatarEnergy’s announcement, while Cheniere’s announcement places the start in the early 2030s. Supply will continue through the end of 2054, making the agreements a long-term arrangement extending more than two decades after shipments begin.

QatarEnergy will buy 2 million tonnes a year from each facility, according to Cheniere, splitting the total volume equally between Sabine Pass and Corpus Christi. The cargoes will be delivered on a free-on-board basis, the companies said in the agreement terms. This means delivery takes place aboard the vessel on an “FOB” basis, as stated in both announcements. The purchase price is linked to Henry Hub plus a fixed fee, according to Cheniere. The agreements thus combine a set annual volume, two separate sources and a pricing mechanism tied to a gas benchmark and a fixed fee.

The Sabine Pass agreement includes an investment condition covering 1 million tonnes a year of the contracted volume. Cheniere said this portion is conditional on a positive final investment decision for the facility’s first expansion phase. This ties a quarter of the announced total annual volume to that condition, while the company did not specify a date for the investment decision in its announcement. The volume is part of Sabine Pass’s 2 million tonnes a year, while Corpus Christi’s share is the same amount. The condition directly links part of the agreed supply to progress on the expansion project, according to details of the agreement announced by Cheniere.

Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, Qatar’s Minister of State for Energy Affairs and chief executive of QatarEnergy, said the long-term purchase “will expand and diversify our global LNG portfolio.” He added that the new supplies will complement the company’s existing supplies. The announcement comes as two of the 14 LNG trains at Ras Laffan were damaged in March attacks, according to a Reuters report cited by Investing.com. The report also said a gas-to-liquids facility was damaged. In this context, the agreements add supplies from two U.S. facilities to the portfolio that Al-Kaabi described as expanding and diversifying.

Cheniere’s facilities have total production capacity of about 56 million tonnes a year, with about 5 million tonnes a year of additional capacity under construction when the agreement was announced, the company said. Across the U.S. market, LNG exports rose from 0.5 billion cubic feet a day in 2016 to 15.0 billion in 2025, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. The U.S. Energy Information Administration expects exports to exceed 18.1 billion cubic feet a day in 2027, according to data cited by the department. These figures place the agreements within the expansion of U.S. LNG exports, while the contracted supply runs through the end of 2054. Shipments are expected to begin in 2031, according to QatarEnergy, and continue through 2054.