News Post

QP signed an agreement with Japanese engineering company Chiyoda to carry out a detailed study to identify modifications required to debottleneck capacity at Qatar's LNG trains at Ras Laffan.

The study is expected to be completed before the end of this year, which will allow QP to kick off the front-end engineering and design work early next year, it said. 

The debottlenecked facilities will process additional quantities of gas produced from a new North Field gas project, after a 12 year moratorium on developments at the world's largest conventional gas field was finally lifted in April.

The offshore North Field straddles the Persian Gulf emirate's maritime border with Iran.

Saad al-Kaabi, QP's CEO said the Chiyoda study would provide QP with "the option of increasing its LNG production with minimum investment, by leveraging the existing massive, world-class infrastructure and valuable synergies available in Ras Laffan Industrial City."

QP announced in early April its plan to develop a new gas project in the southern sector of the North Field with a capacity of about 2 Bcf/d for export. This was the first project announced for the field since 2005. 

The proposed new project, expected to take 5-7 years to come to fruition, would increase the current North Field gas and condensate output by about 10%, adding roughly 400,000 b/d of oil equivalent to Qatar's oil and gas production.

Last year Qatar exported about 78 million mt of LNG to Asian and European markets. Since late 2007, Qatar has also exported at least 2 Bcf/d of North Field gas to the UAE through an undersea pipeline while providing a further 2 Bcf/d to its domestic market.

In 2005, Doha slapped a moratorium on North Field gas development beyond projects already planned for development by 2010, and commissioned a detailed reservoir study ostensibly aimed at determining how rapid development was affecting the field's long-term performance.

--Adal Mirza, adal.mirza@spglobal.com