Qatar Petroleum has awarded the front-end engineering and design contract for its North Field Expansion to Japanese Chiyoda Corporation, according to TradeArabia news.

The facilities will produce an additional 23 million tons per year (mt/y) of LNG, raising Qatar’s annual production to 77 mt/y to 100 mt/y, Qatar Petroleum announced in July 2017, Reuters reported.

In April 2017, Qatar lifted a moratorium on gas development from the North Field, which is the largest single non-associated gas field in the world.

The North Field will send approximately 4.6 billion standard cubic feet per day (bscf/d) of feed gas to the onshore facilities.

The processing of the feed gas will produce approximately 3,000 tons per day of ethane, 185,000 barrels per day (b/d) of condensate, 8,500 tons per day of LNG for world market export, as well as 12 tons per day of pure helium.

“The award of the front end engineering and design contract to Chiyoda Corporation is a significant milestone in our journey to deliver the first LNG from this new project by the end of 2023,” CEO and President of Qatar Petroleum, Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, stated.

“We are continuing discussions with potential international joint venture partners for this strategic project to determine an optimized arrangement with the objective of delivering maximum value to the State of Qatar and contribute to the optimal utilization of Qatar’s natural resources,” Al-Kaabi added.