CNOOC receives first Qatar LNG shipment

BEIJING, Oct 20 - State-owned China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) has received its first cargo of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Qatar, the China Daily reported on Tuesday.

The first shipment, of 216,000 cubic metres, arrived at Dapeng LNG teminal in Shenzhen on Sunday, the newspaper reported.

It is the first shipment under CNOOC's 2 million tonne per year (tpy) supply deal with Qatargas, which will last 25 years.

An earlier Xinhua news report said most LNG downstream buyers had only signed intention agreements rather than formal contracts with CNOOC as the imported price of the costly clean fuel was estimated to be at around 3 yuan per cubic metre, almost twice as expensive as existing supplies from Australia.

But a CNOOC insider cited by China Daily shrugged off the concern, saying the company was under no pressure to sell the fuel.

"Currently, the big consumers of LNG are power plants and industrial users," the China Daily quoted the company insider as saying. "There is great potential to cut costs during the gasifying process, so the contracted price of the LNG doesn't mean a lot."