Ras Laffan Port


World capital in 20 years
The discovery of a quadrillion cubic feet of natural gas 40 miles offshore Ras Laffan in Qatar has propelled the area to declare itself energy capital of the world. John OÔÇÖ Hanlon spoke to Capt. Feisal Saad, manager of Ras Laffan Port, to find out more.
Twenty years ago, northern Qatar was a rocky desert and Ras Laffan a remote promontory jutting out into the Arabian Gulf. What happened next was that gas was discovered in what is now known as the North Field, after which a new port was constructed to ship it round the world.

The North Field is the largest single natural gas deposit in the worldÔÇöit will yield gas for a couple of centuries, give or take, and its discovery has placed Qatar ahead of its wealthiest neighbours. Last year, it was probably the only country in the world to record double digit economic growth. In 2010, as its production facilities ramp up yet further, GDP is expected to grow by another 18.5 per cent.
To process all this gas, the Qatar government, through the national oil company Qatar Petroleum (QP), designated an industrial area, the Ras Laffan Industrial City (RLC), to accommodate the processing and distribution facilities that were going to be needed and to provide an infrastructure. The worldÔÇÖs petrochemical majors like ExxonMobil, Shell, Total, SASOL and many more have provided their processing technologies to build gas processing plants here, forming joint ventures with QP and its subsidiaries.
The sheer size of RLC is perhaps better expressed in terms of people than in fabric or area. Its permanent populationÔÇöthe engineers and administratorsÔÇönumber around 28,000 and every one of them commutes either from nearby communities like Al Khor or from the capital Doha, respectively 25 and 75 kilometres to the south. But this number is dwarfed by the labour camps within the city area itself. In 2008, between the cityÔÇÖs own camps and those run by companies like Shell, camp population rose to 110,000. ÔÇ£The numbers have started decreasing this year as all these projects get completed so it is expected that in another three or four years when we are down to one or two projects at a time, the camps may come down to about 30,000,ÔÇØ explains port manager Capt. Feisal Saad.
The operations at RLC had a major impact on the global energy market. Export agreements have been made with Japan, Korea, India, China, continental Europe and the US, where a receiving plant has been built in the Gulf of Mexico. The first such arrangement was made with the UK, where a regasification plant was built in Milford Haven Port to process the Qatari LNG for the UKÔÇÖs national grid. The first tankers came in last year and as North Sea resources decline, this will fast become a pivotal part of the UKÔÇÖs energy strategy, providing up to 25 per cent of its total needs.
To ship these huge quantities of gas, Qatar started to develop the Ras Laffan port area in 1996, since when it has expanded rapidly. Within 12 kilometre-long breakwaters, the new port has specialised berths for every type of activity associated with RLC, and plenty of room for expansion. To put the operation into its world context, the second largest LNG port in the world at Bintulu in Malaysia has three LNG berths and ships perhaps 18 million tonnes of LNG annually. Ras Laffan already has six LNG berths and will export 77 million tonnes by the end of 2011. However, that is far from the end of the story. ÔÇ£Qatar Petroleum decided to build an infrastructure that would cope with all our requirements over the next 20 years,ÔÇØ says Capt. Saad.
Basic services are all in place: new berths can be added as they are required, he explains. ÔÇ£We have room to build around 25 more berths. At the moment we have six LNG berths with space for a further four. We have six liquid product berths, are building two more and have space for another 14. We have six dry cargo berths. We are building two container berths that will be completed in two yearsÔÇÖ time and we have space for three more.ÔÇØ A further 13 berths are reserved for the offshore supply vessels.
Though the port was started in the 1990s, it is really only since the Ras Laffan Masterplan was implemented from 2006 that the greater part of this infrastructure has been created. Starting from scratch on virgin land and having QP running the whole show made it possible to accomplish in four years what would have taken decades in any other part of the world, he points out. Capt. Saad was previously harbour master at Mesaieed Industrial City, a petrochemical port south of Doha, and at Ras Laffan has four departments under his operational control. The harbour masterÔÇÖs department provides pilotage, towage and controls vessel movements; the logistics department runs onshore logistics for dry cargoes, stevedoring and administration services; the infrastructure department includes facilities management, inspection and maintenance; and the fourth division is a regulatory body within the port making sure ships meet international maritime standards and follow port regulations.
The sixth LNG berth will be completed during the course of this year, and once that and the container berths are complete, the port will concentrate on two massive projects worth a total of $1.8 billion and designed to further establish its self reliance. The first of these, already under construction and due for completion this year, is a dry dock and repair yard for LNG and other types of vessels. By 2012, Capt. Saad expects the whole port facility to be used by 5,000 ships a year.
All these facilities are like links in a chain, he says. ÔÇ£Since we are the largest LNG producer and exporter we want to have the best support facilitiesÔÇöships that call here regularly will have a dry dock they can use every two to three years when they need it. We have the largest known reserves so we have to have high capacity production plants. The standard production of energy plants is perhaps 2.4 million to 3.7 million tonnes per annum, whereas ÔÇÿmega plantsÔÇÖ produce 7.8 million tonnes per annum, and we have built six of these! We need to ship all this, so the port is a key link in the chain. We decided that rather than chartering, we could be the largest ship owner on the LNG side, so the government created Qatar Gas Transport Company, known as Nakilat ['carrier'] which owns and operates the LNG vessels. Why not have the dry dock too? We have a captive trade and it is all part of our strategic chain.ÔÇØ
The dry dock is being built on reclaimed land by Qatar Petroleum at a total cost of $450 million, and will be used by a joint venture of the Singapore marine construction specialist Keppel with Nakilat. Spread over 43 hectares, it contains two large dry docks and one Panamax-size floating dock. It will provide facilities to repair and maintain the fast-growing Nakilat LNG fleet and all other types of vessels. A further part of the reclaimed site is devoted to shipbuilding, this time with Nakilat in partnership with Dutch shipbuilder Damen. ÔÇ£We wonÔÇÖt build very large ships here; but weÔÇÖll build anything up to 120 metres long, including yachts, tugs, offshore supply vessels, coastal tankers or naval vessels,ÔÇØ he says. The shipbuilding yard will be in production by the end of the first half of 2010.
Development on this scale is bound to affect both land and sea, but the port was able to address environmental issues from the planning stage. Best practices include common water cooling systems that ensure the water returned to the sea from the plants is clean and at the right temperature. A percentage of investment has been earmarked for environmental studies and remediation, and it is encouraging to find, for example, that turtles breeding close to the port are increasing in number. ÔÇ£They are better protected now than they ever were before,ÔÇØ says Capt. Saad.
Environmental Protection was one of three Seatrade awards won by RLC in 2009, the others being Best Port Authority and Best Strategy for Oil & Gas. No organisation had ever bagged three awards in the same year before. The port was also awarded by LloydÔÇÖs List the Best Port Infrastructure Award for 2009.