Affiliates of Qatar Petroleum and the Belgian independent natural gas transport company Fluxys Belgium have signed a long-term agreement for LNG unloading services at the Zeebrugge LNG Terminal.

Under the agreement, Qatar Terminal Limited (QTL), a subsidiary of Qatar Petroleum, will subscribe to the full capacity at the terminal from the termination of the existing long-term unloading contracts and up to 2044.

The transaction follows an ambitious evaluation process as well as the approval of the Belgian regulators.

QTL is already a party to an existing agreement under which approximately 50 per cent of the terminal’s capacity is used for delivery of Qatari LNG into Belgium under long-term LNG agreements.

The agreement was marked during a ceremony held in Brussels by Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, Minister of State for Energy Affairs, president & CEO of Qatar Petroleum, and Pascal De Buck, chairman of the Executive Board and CEO of Fluxys Belgium in the presence of Marie Christine Marghem, the Belgian Federal Minister of Energy, Environment & Sustainable Development.

Al-Kaabi said: “We are pleased to sign this landmark agreement today to extend and expand our existing long-term partnership with Fluxys Belgium for decades to come. We believe this deal will further support our customers in Belgium and Europe in general, by providing access to reliable LNG supplies from Qatar and allowing our customers to maximize the utilization of such supplies.”

He added further, “Qatar Petroleum has long invested in and anchored LNG receiving terminal capacity in Europe, a key gas market, as part of our supply destination portfolio expanding ideas. We continue to be committed to supporting the EU’s energy policies and enabling reliable energy supplies into Europe”

The Zeebrugge LNG Terminal in Belgium was delegated in 1987. It has since developed, together with the Zeebrugge area as a whole, into a central crossroads for North-West Europe's gas network. Situated at the point where a number of gas pipelines meet, the terminal plays a key role in Europe's natural gas supplies.

The terminal is functioned by Fluxys LNG, part of Belgian independent natural gas transport company Fluxys. The terminal currently has 380,000 cu ms of LNG storage capacity spread over 4 tanks and an annual throughput capacity of 9 billion cu m of natural gas. A fifth 180,000 cu m storage tank is currently under construction.