Qatar’s state-owned oil and gas company, QatarEnergy aims to become the world’s largest LNG player within five to 10 years.
In a speech at the London Energy Intelligence forum last week, Qatari Minister of State for Energy Affairs and QatarEnergy President and CEO, Saad bin Sherida Al Kaabi, outlined his country’s plans.
According to the Qatar News Agency, Al Kaabi said that QatarEnergy is currently selling about five to 10 mill tonnes of LNG in total.
He added that large quantities of Qatar’s gas production will be shipped to Europe in the coming period, explaining that QatarEnergy had adopted a successful partnership model to enable it to expand and undertake expansion alone.
QatarEnergy conducts business on a fully commercial basis and is no longer a governmental company, he claimed.
He further warned that in general, energy prices were expected to remain high in the foreseeable future, and would not peak anytime soon.
Meanwhile, QatarEnergy’s LNG projects were progressing and recently, French energy major TotalEnergies was chosen as the first international partner in the North Field South (NFS) LNG phase.
The French energy major will invest around $1.5 bill to become a partner.
It was thought that Shell and Exxon Mobil and another energy giant will also join the NFS expansion project as partners in the coming weeks.
The two-phase North Field expansion project will include six LNG trains to ramp up its liquefaction capacity from 77 mill tonnes per annum currently to 126 mill tonnes by 2027.
The first, North Field East (NFE), is expected to add 33 mill tonnes while NFS will add another 16 mill tonnes per annum.
Earlier this year, QatarEnergy signed overall NFE partnership deals with TotalEnergies, Shell, Exxon, ConocoPhillips and Italy's Eni.
