Gas fuels growth

zoom

zoom

Ras Laffan Industrial City includes a port complex.

Qatar contains the world's third largest natural gas reserves - estimated at 26 billion m³ - after Russia and Iran - and has the largest non-associated gas field in the world, the North Field. It is a major exporter of LNG and a world leader in GTL technology. Gas production is expected to reach 90 billion m³ after 2011 almost double last year's level of around 48 billion m³.

The LNG industry in Qatar is well established and has been operating since 1996. There are two main exporters - Qatar LNG Company (Qatargas) and Ras Laffan LNG (RasGas). Qatargas has three 2.7 billion m³ trains and completed a de-bottlenecking project at the end of 2006 to boost processing capacity to 12.6 billion m³. In 2004 Qatargas 2 was announced as a joint venture between Exxon and Qatar Petroleum (QP) involving two 10.7 billion m³ trains one completed this year and the other in 2008. Preliminary agreements have also been signed for Qatargas 3 a joint venture between QP and ConocoPhillips which anticipates 7.5 million tonnes per year (t/y) of capacity designed for export to the US. It is expected to begin operations in 2009. Shell and QP also signed in 2005 an agreement for Qatargas 4 due to start production in 2009 or 2010 and again aimed at the North American market.

RasGas will, by the end of this year, have five trains operational, each with a capacity of 4.6 billion m³. A further 21.4 billion m³ of LNG capacity with two trains is being added by a Qatar Petroleum/ExxonMobil joint venture - RasGas 2 - the first of which will be commissioned in late 2008 or early 2009 using gas from the North Field as feedstock. All this new production will be exported to European markets.

Most of this new LNG capacity has already been marketed. In August 2006 RasGas signed an agreement with India's Petronet LNG to supply an extra 2.5 million t/y of gas bringing the annual total to 10 million tonnes from the third quarter of 2009. In April this year Japan's Marubeni Corporation signed an agreement to purchase 1 million t/y of LNG from Qatargas 4 from 2010. QP said earlier this year that almost all the 77 million t/y of LNG in place by 2010 has been sold. In April, it was announced that Qatar will launch the first market for trade in LNG with the new IMEX energy exchange which will be created in Energy City Qatar later this year.

Qatar is also involved in foreign LNG projects. In July the Italian government approved the construction of an 8 billion m³ regasification plant at Rovigo off the northern Adriatic coast. It is being operated as a joint venture by QP (45%), ExxonMobil (45%) and Edison (10%) using gas from RasGas at an initial 6.6 billion m³ per year possibly rising later to 8 billion m³ per year.

GTLs are also an important part of Qatar's gas industry. Earlier this year, the US $1 billion, 34000 barrel per day (bpd) Oryx project came on stream with the first consignment shipped to market in April. Sasol said in May that the plant had experienced ‘start-up operational challenges' and that operating rates were lower than planned, but that the installation of additional downstream equipment to increase throughput had begun and would be available for implementation ‘towards the middle of 2008'. Sasol has announced plans to triple the capacity of the site, potentially taking it to more than 100000 bpd.

Print | Email | Discuss this article |

USER COMMENTS (0 COMMENTS)

POST A COMMENT

CLICK HERE TO POST A COMMENT

Add your Comment All posts are sent to the administrator for review and are published only after approval. ArabianBusiness.com reserves the right to remove any comment at any time for any reason. Please keep your responses appropriate and on topic.
Name *
Remember me on this computer
Email *	(Your email address will not be published)
City
Country
Subject *
Comment *
Notify me of further comments
Security Code *
Please click post only once - your comment will not be published immediately.