New berths under construction at Ras Laffan Port will be operational by 2011, according to the Director of Ras Laffan Industrial City. Sheikh Khalid bin Khalifa Al Thani said that since operations began in 1996, both the port and its berth facilities at Ras Laffan Industrial City have been developed extensively to cater for exports from new and expanding industries. “With four operational LNG berths, the port is already the world’s premier LNG exporting facility,” he said. Ras Laffan Port also has a number of other berths to export liquids such as condensate, LPG (Liquefied Petroleum Gas) and GTL (Gas to Liquids) products. “Clean gas and clean fuels mean Ras Laffan is becoming the world’s leading green industrial city,” said Ras Laffan director in remarks to the Oxford Business Group (OBG). Ras Laffan Industrial City is the centre for refining and most other energy production activities in Qatar. The site provides a variety of support services for the gas industry and also has an industrial port that is used for shipping hydrocarbon products abroad. The latest addition to the current port facilities is a large ship repair and dry-dock facility which is expected to be operational by mid-2010. As Liquefied Natural Gas production continues to rise at the two major Qatar Petroleum (QP) joint venture industries, Qatar is well on the way to achieving its target of exporting 77 million tonnes of LNG annually by the end of the decade. Sheikh Khalid said, referring to the first new mega-train for Qatargas 2 Project which opened for business this month; “When the current expansions are completed, Qatargas and RasGas will each operate seven production trains, producing 41 million and 36 million tonnes respectively.” The Qatargas 2 Project mega-trains 4 and 5 will produce a total of 15.6 million tonnes per year, with cargo mainly destined for the United Kingdom. The other mega-trains of Qatargas 3 and 4 and RasGas 3 will begin operations in the next two years. http://thepeninsulaqatar.com/Display_news.asp?section=Local_News&subsection=Qatar+News&month=April2009&file=Local_News2009042251619.xml

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