State-owned China Merchants Energy Shipping has signed a deal worth about CNY10 billion (USD1.4 billion) to build and lease six more liquefied natural gas carriers to QatarEnergy.

South Korea’s Samsung Heavy Industries will be responsible for building and delivering the vessels, which will each have the capacity to carry 175,000 cubic meters of LNG, the Shanghai-based firm said yesterday. They are scheduled for delivery from the end of 2026 to 2028.

QatarEnergy will charter the vessels from China Merchants Energy for a minimum of 15 years, with the option to extend that for another five or 10 years, the Chinese company said.

The contract means that the number of non-joint on-hand orders for LNG carriers with CMES LNG Shipping, China Merchants Energy's recently formed LNG transportation unit, has risen to 14, with the earliest delivery date set in the second half of next year, the parent firm noted.

Thanks to shrewd new investment in recent years, China Merchants Energy has emerged as a leading owner in the global LNG shipping market. It had 22 wholly or partly owned LNG carriers with a total carrying capacity of nearly 2 million tons at the end of last year and its LNG carrier fleet transported just over 22 million tons in 2023, according to its annual earnings report.

Before CMES LNG Shipping was set up in 2022, China Merchants Energy's LNG carrier business was mainly run by China LNG Shipping Holdings, a 50-50 joint venture with China COSCO Shipping, with QatarEnergy one of the JV’s prominent customers.

Shares of China Merchants Energy [SHA: 601872] closed up 0.4 percent at CNY8.22 (USD1.14) apiece in Shanghai today. The Shanghai Composite Index fell 0.2 percent.