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QatarEnergy previously announced that it expects the damage to its Ras Laffan complex caused by missile strikes to cost about $20 billion a year in lost revenue and to take up to five years to repair, impacting supply to markets in Europe and Asia.
According to QatarEnergy, the attacks damaged two LNG producing Trains 4 and 6 totaling 12.8 million tons per annum (mtpa) of production, representing approximately 17 percent of Qatar’s exports.
Train 4 is a joint venture between QatarEnergy (66 percent) and ExxonMobil (34 percent), while Train 6 is a joint venture between QatarEnergy (70 percent) and ExxonMobil (30 percent).
Technip Energies is working as the EPC contractor on all three QatarEnergy expansion projects, including the North Field East (NFE), North Field South (NFS), and the most recent North Field West (NFW) project.
These projects will boost Qatari LNG capacity at Ras Laffan from the current 77 mtpa to 142 mtpa.
Services and reconstruction
Pieton discussed the ongoing situation in the Middle East and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz during the first-quarter earnings call on Thursday.
Asked about reports saying that the repair and restoration costs for energy-linked infrastructure in the Middle East could be as high as 58 billion euros ($68 billion), Pieton said that he “won’t comment on the total scale of the repair work and scope that is ahead to come in the Middle East.”
“But certainly, we are incumbent in many of those infrastructures, and we have a strong presence, of course, in Qatar and beyond,” he said.
“So, at the moment, it is very important in these times to stand by our clients’ side, which is what we are doing and to propose solutions to the challenge that they are facing for a swift recovery and repair of some of the damaged infrastructure,” he said.
“It is a little bit early to tell you about the size of the opportunity. It is meaningful, but we will also find a contractual mechanism with our client that is, I would say, reflective of the situation. In other words, let’s provide what is quality work and let’s not go chase volume,” he said.
“There are circumstances where it will be easier to achieve, I would say, the type of pace and cadence that we need for the repairs jointly with our customers. We suggest that they proceed with early procurement while we focus on engineering and assessment of the damage,” he said.
“So, it might not translate into, I can’t remember which number you use, tens of billions of EPC opportunities, but it will translate into, I would say, real services opportunities and reconstruction opportunities, which might be lump sum or not,” he said.
Dedicated team
Asked about whether Technip Energies has the capacity to perform both the reconstruction plus the expansion works for the North Field projects, Pieton said, “Yes, we do have the capacity to support QatarEnergy in their repair effort for trains 4 and 6, which have been touched or damaged.”
“To that effect, we mobilized a dedicated team. It has been in agreement with our clients. It’s been decided that it was extremely important to them, to not tap into the resource pool made available on NFE and NFS and as we are also mobilizing on NFW for the repair work,” he said.
He said that TechnipEnergies has a dedicated repair team separate from the NFE, NFS, and NFW teams.
“And the scope that will be secured through the repair work will come in addition to the scope that is already secured,” he said.
“And as you rightly pointed out, because we have quite a bit of work in Qatar already, it may be that there we favor other contracting schemes than the traditional ones, which historically have been more towards the lump sum turnkey. In this case, we may be more towards the form of PMC and services and reimbursable and EPCM,” he said.
“And three, the contracting scheme may be a little bit different in order to address, I would say, the level of exposure we already have in country. But the important thing, and I repeat what I said earlier, is to be by our client side and to be a force of proposition and solution seeking and solution finding, and there’s quite a good dynamic from what I can observe, and a lot of reactivity and the pace is actually quite strong on this one,” Pieton added.