According to the Korea Herald , the national oil company Qatar Petroleum has signed an agreement with three Korean shipbuilders, Hyundai Heavy Industries, Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering and Samsung Heavy Industries. This is the largest liquefied natural gas shipbuilding project ever with a total value of up to 20 billion USD .

Under the agreement, the three Korean companies must ensure most of the capacity to produce liquefied natural gas carriers for Qatar Petroleum by 2027.

Saad Al-Kaabi, Qatar Petroleum’s chief executive and energy minister, said: "We are ready to start the largest liquefied natural gas shipbuilding project in history."

Qatar Petroleum needs more than 100 liquefied natural gas carriers by 2027. Currently, the company has guaranteed about 60% of this shipbuilding capacity.

A source said the number of ships needed to build is not yet clearly allocated to each Korean company. Three shipbuilders are likely to participate in a tender this year to determine a specific quantity.

Qatar is the largest producer of liquefied natural gas in the world, with the current output of about 77 million tons / year. However, the country is raising ambition to increase production to 126 million tons / year by 2027.