by Yousef Saba

DUBAI (Reuters) – QatarEnergy said on Monday it would supply gas to Italy’s Eni for 27 years, after striking several other supply deals this month with Shell for the Netherlands and TotalEnergies for France.

Subsidiaries of QatarEnergy and Eni have signed a long-term contract for one million tonnes per annum (mtpa) of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Qatar’s North Field expansion project.

LNG will be delivered from 2026 to FSRU Italia, a floating storage and regasification unit located in Tuscany, in the port of Piombino.

Eni holds a 3.125% stake in the North Field East field expansion which, together with the North Field South field expansion, will increase Qatar’s liquefaction capacity from 77 mtpa to 126 mtpa by 2027.

Qatar is the world’s largest exporter of LNG, and has signed several 27-year agreements in the past two weeks, which will supply 3.5 million tonnes per year to Shell and TotalEnergies from 2026, constituting its longest and largest LNG contract. gas supply in Europe.

Until now, Asia, fond of long-term sales and purchase agreements, had beaten Europe by committing to supply gas from the two-phase expansion of LNG production from QatarEnergy.

But European Union buyers are seeking to sign long-term contracts aimed at replacing Russian gas, which accounted for almost 40% of supplies before Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine last year.

Germany was the largest buyer of Russian gas in the EU. It will now source 2 million tonnes per year from 2026 thanks to a 15-year agreement between QatarEnergy and ConocoPhillips signed in November 2022.

QatarEnergy said Italy was already receiving more than 10% of its natural gas needs from Qatari LNG deliveries to the Adriatic terminal.

(Report by Yousef Saba; by Nathan Vifflin, edited by Blandine Hénault)

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