Qatargas, a unit of state-owned Qatar Petroleum, is hoping to sign a deal with French oil major Total SA (TOT) to supply 5 million metric tonnes of liquefied natural gas (LNG) a year soon, a senior Qatargas executive said.

Qatargas Vice Chairman and Managing Director Faisal Al-Suwaidi told Dow Jones Newswires that the deal could be signed as soon as sometime in May.
But Al-Suwaidi told reporters at a press briefing elsewhere that Qatargas and Total are “still at the last stages of putting (the deal) together.” 
There are a small number of issues still to be determined, but these issues are not major obstacles, he said.
“We are still very optimistic that we can pull this together,” Al-Suwaidi said.
Al-Suwaidi said Total could join the Qatargas 2 project, which could pave the way for the construction of a third liquefied natural gas train, or Total could participate in several other projects.
“The likelihood is (Total) joins Qatargas 2,” he said.
Presently, Qatar Petroleum has a 70 per cent stake in Qatargas 2, while US integrated oil company ExxonMobil Corp. (XOM) has 30 per cent.
Total is already a shareholder in Qatargas, a joint venture which has been producing LNG since 1996, largely for the Japanese market.
Qatargas, also called Qatargas 1 to distinguish it from Qatargas 2, is jointly owned by Qatar Petroleum - which has a 65 per cent share in the company - and by Total, ExxonMobil, Mitsui and Co Ltd, and Marubeni Corp.
The Qatargas 2 project involves building two LNG trains within the existing Qatargas plant site in Ras Laffan Industrial City, Qatar.
LNG from the two trains, each with over 7.5 million tonnes a year of capacity, is to be sold in the UK by ExxonMobil Gas Marketing.
If Total joins the project, that could add an additional 5 million tonnes a year of capacity to Qatargas 2, Al-Suwaidi said.
The LNG from Qatargas 2 would be delivered to the US, the UK, and Southern Europe, he said.
Turning to a proposal to build an LNG receiving terminal in South Wales in the UK as a delivery point for some of Qatargas 2’s output, Al-Suwaidi said progress is being made.
“We are issuing a tender (for engineering work) - we pre-qualified companies some weeks ago,” he said.
The pre-qualified companies include Skanska AB and John Brown, he said.
The UK terminal, called South Hook, could cost between $800 million and $1 billion to develop, he said.
A final decision on whether to proceed with the project would be made by October 2004, Al-Suwaidi said.