Marubeni Corp will take a a stake in the fourth stage of the giant Qatargas liquefied natural gas (LNG) project, which will supply it with about a million tonnes per year from 2010, the Japanese firm and Qatargas said.

Qatar, the world’s largest LNG exporter, had said that most of the 77 million tonnes of LNG capacity that it will have by 2010 was sold out.
But the country has some flexibility under its supply contracts to divert cargoes from one buyer to another if necessary.
Qatargas did not detail the size of the stake, any investment Marubeni might make or the terms of the supply contract in a statement on the deal.
A Marubeni spokesman said the size of the stake or its seller had not yet been decided. He declined to comment on the number of years it would get LNG supplies, to be shipped to Japan.
The Qatargas IV scheme is for one LNG train with capacity of 7.8 million tonnes per year.
Qatargas IV is 70 per cent-owned by state oil and gas company Qatar Petroleum, while Royal Dutch Shell holds 30 per cent.
Marubeni already owns a 2.5 per cent stake in Qatargas I, which has three LNG production trains with combined capacity of 9.5 million tonnes per year.
In October last year, a consortium led by Marubeni won a $2.3 billion project to build a natural gas-fired power plant in Qatar. Marubeni also has a stake in an $800 million, 145,000 barrels per day refinery that is under construction in Qatar.
Qatar put new projects at the country’s mammoth North Field on hold in April 2005 to study how the field was performing after rapid development that propelled the country as the world’s largest LNG exporter last year.