The foundation stone of Ras Laffan Liquefied Natural Gas Company's (RasGas) expansion project was laid last January in Ras Laffan Industrial City.

The new third train expansion will start-up in early 2004 in order to supply the needs of India's Petronet LNG under a sale and purchase agreement (SPA) signed in 1999. The new train, coupled with incremental volumes from RasGas' Trains 1 and 2 facilities, will supply Petronet's requirements for 5.0 million tonnes per year (tpy) of LNG for 25 years to its terminal presently under construction at Dahej in the State of Gujarat.

The engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contracts for Train 3 were signed on April 1, 2001, for the construction of the offshore and onshore facilities. In addition to the new onshore LNG process train, the expansion also includes the drilling of seven gas production wells and construction and installation of a wellhead platform and pipeline to bring the gas to Ras Laffan.

RasGas' onshore facilities for the third train will be built by an EPC contractor consortium made up of Chiyoda and Mitsui of Japan, Snamprogetti of Italy, and Al-Mana of Qatar (CMS&A). Chiyoda has extensive experience in building LNG projects around the world, including in Qatar. CMS&A's design will provide an LNG train with production capacity of 4.7 million tpy, the largest so far in the industry, to be built on RasGas' existing site, located adjacent to Trains 1 and 2.

Offshore, Rasgas' Train 3 facilities include a wellhead platform and 38" pipeline running 99 km to shore that will be built and installed by J.Ray McDermott, also the construction contractor for Trains 1 and 2 offshore facilities.