MUSCAT: Thailand’s state-owned energy conglomerate PTT has secured commitments from Oman LNG for the supply of 300,000 tonnes per annum (tpa) of liquefied natural gas (LNG) for five years starting from 2025.
Local Thai media revealed that an ‘LNG Supply and Purchase Agreement’ was signed to this effect between PTT International Trading, represented by Pongpun Amornvivat, Senior Executive Vice President for International Business, and Oman LNG, represented by its CEO, Dr Hamed al Naamany.
The pact builds on an earlier commitment by Oman LNG, finalised via a binding term sheet agreement inked in January 2023, for the supply of 800,000 tpa of LNG for a nine-year period beginning in 2026.
Thai English daily, Bangkok Post, said the latest LNG supply pact will help ease a current shortage of natural gas supply critical to the generation of cost-competitive electricity for the domestic economy.
Significantly, with this new agreement, PTT and its subsidiaries are set to further expand their already significant substantive relationship with Oman’s rapidly diversifying energy landscape. PTTEP, the upstream arm of PTT, already owns a 20 per cent stake in Block 61 (home to one of Oman’s biggest gas fields), in addition to minor stakes in Petroleum Development Oman (PDO), Block 53 (Mukhaizna block) and Oman LNG.
More recently, PTTEP’s green energy subsidiary, FutureTech Energy Ventures Company Limited (FTEV), was named a partner in a multinational consortium that signed agreements with Hydrom – Oman’s green hydrogen industry orchestrator – for the development of a mega-scale green hydrogen project in Oman.
The consortium is led by South Korean steel manufacturing giant POSCO and French energy company ENGIE, and also groups Korean businesses Samsung Engineering, Korea East-West Power and Korea Southern Power, besides MESCAT Middle East DMCC.
For Oman LNG, on the other hand, the latest pact adds to a succession of supply commitments that ensure long-term markets for the bulk of the company’s LNG output over the next 10 years, starting from 2025. This 10-year extension, coming at the end of Oman LNG’s current 20-year mandate, was approved by the company’s shareholders last year following a commitment by wholly state-owned Integrated Gas Company (IGC) to supply feed gas for the LNG plant through to 2034.
Long-term offtakers of Omani LNG during the extension phase starting from 2025 include TotalEnergies, which has committed to lifting 800,000 tpa for 10 years starting from next year.
A similar LNG sale and purchase agreement has also been formalised with BOTAŞ Petroleum Pipeline Corporation (BOTAS) of Turkiye for the supply of around 1 million tpa of LNG for a period of 10 years starting in 2025.
Likewise, Japanese power company JERA has pledged to lift 800,000 tpa of LNG from Oman over a span of 10 years, commencing in 2025, while Germany’s SEFE Secure Energy for Europe (SEFE) has agreed to offtake 400,000 tpa of Omani LNG for a four-year period starting from 2026.
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