After more than a decade of halt, Qatar Petroleum is making a comeback into the liquefied natural gas market with its North Field.
After a 12-year moratorium on North Field, the world’s largest natural gas field which Qatar shares with Iran, Qatar Petroleum has announced that the halt has been lifted and they are going back into business.
Qatar’s North Field – Wikimedia
The move will challenge competitors around the world, such as Australia, Russia, US and even Iran, which owns South Pars, about a third of the whole gas reserve.
The news was announced by Qatar Petroleum chief executive office Saad Sherida Al Kaabi, who also revealed that the once all facilities are up and running, the field is expected to produce 2 billion cubic feet of gas per day.
While Doha beat Iran to start extraction, Iran just got rid of sanctions and allegedly fixed mismanagement within the country’s gas management, and are expected to overtake production by next March.
Iran signed an agreement on further development on the South Pars gas field with the French oil company Total SA last November.
The move is seen as very bold on Qatar’s behalf, since the global liquefied natural gas market has been on an all-time low over the past three years. Forecasters believe that the market will remain down until 2020, or even 2022.
At the moment, four countries are competing for the top LNG exporter spot, Qatar, Australia, the US and Russia.
Qatar however has the upper hand since it will not need to construct new production units. If they find a way to reuse the ones they already have, it would save them both time and money.
