Qatargas received Green Award for three more of its chartered liquefied natural gas vessels: a significant recognition of the vessels’ compliance with global environment and safety standards.

The award for the vessels, Broog, Al Zubarah and Zekreet were presented to the vessel operators, in the presence of Mr Alaa Abu Jbara, Qatargas' COO (commercial and shipping) by Mr Jan Fransen MD of the Green Award Foundation, at a ceremony held at Qatargas' head office in Doha.

Also at the ceremony, the operators received the green award office certificate, which is a pre requisite for the validity of the vessel certificate.

Mr Hiroshi Yonezawa, president of NYK LNG Ship Management received the office certificate as well as the vessel certificate for Broog. Mr Larry Dickens, Doha general manager of Mitsui OSK Lines received the office certificate as well as the vessel certificate for Al Zubarah while Takayoshi Kaneko, chief representative, Middle East Representative Office of K Line received the office certificate and the vessel certificate for Zekreet.

Mr Jbara congratulated the vessel operators and the Qatargas shipping team on this achievement and said that "Qatargas shipping team has been working with the Green Award Foundation to qualify our LNG vessels into the green award certification system. Today we are seeing the results of all the hard work. This is a major achievement for Qatargas and for the LNG industry. It is a great honor for us that major shipping companies like NYK, MOL and K Line have enrolled in the green award program. We hope that our other partners and the rest of the industry will also join us."

Qatargas shipping manager Mr Abdurrahman al Mulla, who was recently appointed a member of the Green Award Foundation Board of Experts, said that "The strong support and ambitious drive for excellence of Qatargas’ senior management, combined with the dedication and hard work of the shipping team and our collective partners has certainly paid off."

Mr Fransen said that "I would like to thank Qatargas for hosting this event. This is a very special occasion for all of us. We are proud we launched the green award for LNG vessels in September this year with the help of Qatargas. We are also proud that today we have three major Japanese shipping companies who enrolled their vessels to the Green Award Foundation. This is good for the shipping companies, for Qatargas, and for the industry and of course for the Green Award Foundation."

Green award certification demonstrates proactive implementation of industry best practices and internationally accepted current and developing legislation in safety in operations, quality management, ship arrangements and protection of the environment.

In October 2011, the Qatargas chartered SS Dukhan received the world’s first ever green award certificate, for a specific LNG ship, acknowledging the vessel’s compliance with global environment regulations and safety standards.