Qatar Doubles Planned North Field Project Size
Tuesday 4 July 2017
Qatar has doubled the size of the gas production increase it expects from a new development in the giant North Field as the under-fire liquefied natural gas giant aims for a national total of 100 million tonnes per annum of LNG output.
A planned new development in the southern part of the huge field, which was announced in early April along with the lifting of a moratorium on developments there, is now expected to see production rise 20% in the North Field alone.
When Qatar Petroleum chief executive Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi lifted the long-standing moratorium, he said the aim of the planned development was to lift production at the North Field by about 10%, adding around 400,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day to the state’s total production.
On Tuesday, however, Kaabi said: “With the conclusion of further technical studies, we have decided that the best option would be to double the size of the project to 4 billion cubic feet of gas per day, which constitutes a 20% increase from the current North Field production rate, or about 1 million barrels of oil equivalent per day.” The figure of 1 million boepd also includes condensates and other associated products, not just gas.
The Qatar Petroleum boss said it has decided that “the best way to develop this huge project is by dedicating it to the production and export of LNG”, with ambitions to now raise the state’s total LNG output from 77 million tpa to 100 million tpa.
Kaabi said the development will be completed in six or seven years and will raise Qatar’s total hydrocarbons output to around 6 million barrels of oil equivalent per day.
No expected development project costs were released, however.
Kaabi continued: “This new project will further enhance Qatar's leading position in the global gas industry, while at the same time meeting its worldwide customers’ growing needs for this reliable and environmentally friendly fuel.
“The planned production increase will also contribute to monetising Qatar’s resources and to stimulating the domestic economy as well as the country's overall development in line with the Qatar National Vision 2030.”
Qatar has found itself in the firing line from other key Gulf states and Muslim-dominated countries, which have accused the Doha regime of supporting Islamist terror groups – a claim that Qatari officials have consistently denied.
Qatar imposed a ban on further development in the North Field 12 years ago in order to allow it to study the impact of a hectic pace of gas projects — carried out with the likes of ExxonMobil, Shell, Total and ConocoPhillips — in the past decade on the offshore reservoir shared with Iran, where it is called South Pars.
Incidentally, Qatar’s revised plans on Tuesday came a day after Total and China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) signed a long-term deal with National Iranian Oil Company for the South Pars phase 11 development. The total cost of the development – which will come in two stages – is set to be around $5 billion.
When Kaabi lifted the moratorium and announced the planned new development in the southern part of the North Field, he downplayed the potential for any dispute with Iran, saying the new development will take place well away from Iranian waters.
"Iran and Qatar have an excellent political relationship, for us as technicians we have an excellent technical relationship. We have a committee that meets regularly to discuss what both sides are doing," he said in April.
"So there's a mutual understanding of what is happening. They're free to do what they want on their side of the field and we're free to do what we want on our side of the field.