The North Field, along with the extended South Pars field on the Iranian side of the Persian Gulf, is by far the world’s largest non-associated natural gas field.

The NFW project is the third and most recent expansion phase of LNG production from the giant gas field, which upon completion, aims to increase Qatar’s liquefaction capacity to 142 million tonnes per annum.

In a statement released on Wednesday, QatarEnergy said the scope of the onshore EPC contract includes two LNG mega-trains with a combined production capacity of 16 million tpa, as well as associated facilities for gas treatment, natural gas liquids recovery and helium extraction.

In addition to LNG production, the project is expected to produce about 175,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day of condensate, ethane and liquefied petroleum gas, it noted.

The award was marked by a signing ceremony held at QatarEnergy’s headquarters in Doha and attended by senior executives from QatarEnergy, QatarEnergy LNG, and the contractors.

The agreement was signed by Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, Qatar’s Minister of State for Energy Affairs and chief executive of QatarEnergy, as well as Arnaud Pieton, chief executive of Technip Energies, Samer Khoury, chairman of CCC, and Ravi Pillai, chairman of Doha-based GAC.

Mega LNG trains

Technip Energies also confirmed the award in a separate statement and noted the award covers the delivery of two megatrains, each with a capacity of 8 million tpa of LNG, as a replication of the two trains under construction by Technip Energies and CCC for the North Field South (NFS) project.

“Similar to North Field East (NFE) and NFS, NFW will capture and sequestrate an additional 1.1 million tpa of CO2 to bring the total to 2.2 million tpa from NFS and NFW combined,” the French contractor stated.

For Technip Energies, the leading contractor in the consortium, the deal marks another milestone in its involvement in Qatari LNG schemes, having also been associated with the multibillion-dollar NFE and NFS projects.

Technip Energies did not reveal the contract value, but described the QatarEnergy deal as a major EPC award, representing above €1 billion ($1.18 billion) of revenue.

“This award was recorded in Q1 2026 in the project delivery segment,” the contracting player said.

However, industry sources have indicated that the NFW award could be potentially worth billions of dollars.

Technip Energies chief executive Arnaud Pieton said: “This award reflects not only the continuity of our engagement across the North Field developments, but also a crucial contribution to meeting growing global LNG demand.”

Pieton also told Upstream in a recent interview that he remains optimistic about the market outlook for the year ahead and is eyeing an increase in the global contractor’s backlog of multibillion-dollar projects.

Low carbon footprint

All key expansion phases at the giant North Field have a crucial carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) workscope, aimed at lowering the carbon footprint at the gas megaproject.

Al-Kaabi said the NFW project follows in the footsteps of the 32 million tpa NFE and 16 million tpa NFS projects, and places strong emphasis on environmental performance.

Key features, he added, include a CCS capacity of 1.1 million tpa “which takes us closer towards achieving our target” of capturing and sequestering more than 11 million tpa of carbon dioxide by 2035.

In addition to CCS facilities, jetty boil-off gas recovery facilities for NFW will recover an equivalent of 420,000 tpa of CO2, while a significant portion of the project’s electrical requirements will be sourced from Qatari solar plants.

The first LNG cargo from the NFW project is expected to be produced by the end of 2031.

Japan’s Chiyoda Corporation was recently awarded a front-end engineering and design contract by QatarEnergy LNG for the NFW liquefied natural gas onshore facilities, Upstream reported.

The NFW project could potentially cost upwards of $20 billion, incorporating liquefaction, storage and offshore facilities, sources earlier told Upstream.