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Weekly UpdatesQatar's crude oil production capacity exceeds 1m b/d, up from 860,000 b/d in August 2007, and will rise to more than 1.26m b/d in 2011/12 and 1.5m b/d by 2015 - including its 50% share of al-Bunduq field. This is excluding condensate of which Qatar will be producing 900,000 b/d by 2012, from 300,000 b/d in the autumn of 2007. Like most OPEC states, Qatar is producing over its quota of 731,000 b/d, with its output exceeding 840,000 b/d of crude oil. Qatar is the world's biggest exporter of LNG.
Sa'd al-Ka'bi, director of oil and gas projects at the state-owned Qatar Petroleum (QP) on Aug. 20, 2009, said Qatar's natural gas production in 2014 would rise to 23,000 MCF/day. According to BP's 2009 annual statistical review, Qatar's output of natural gas in 2008 was about 7,400 MCF/day (see Part 2 & gmt10QatrFieldsSep7-09).
The 2014 total for natural gas, including domestic supply and gas piped to the UAE, will be 4.2m b/doe. Added to crude oil production of 1.3m b/d, the total would be 5.5m b/doe. Qatar is to boost LNG production and export capacity to 77m t/d in late 2010, up from a current capacity of 53.7m t/y which is to rise to 69.3m t/y by end-2009 or early 2010 (see Part 3 & gmt11QatrGasExpSep14-09).
Qatar, which holds the world's third largest gas reserves, is expected to produce 12m t/y of LPG (propane & butane) by 2014, with total petrochemical production to reach 4.3m t/y by 2015 (see down11QatrPetchmSep14-09).
The Doha government says a moratorium on E&P projects in its offshore North Field, which holds the bulk of Qatar's gas reserves, is likely to remain in place until 2014. However, Qatari Emir Shaikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani may make an exception to open up the North Field for a project to export natural gas by pipeline to Europe via Turkey through the US/EU-backed Nabucco project. This project is of huge geo-political importance.
During his recent visit to Istanbul, Shaikh Hamad met with Turkish President Abdullah Gul and promised him to seriously consider this project which would help diversify EU's sources of natural gas away from over-dependence on Russia. The powers behind Nabucco, led by the US and EU, include Turkey which is part of the Saudi-led Sunni front in the Muslim world. Qatar wants the gas to pass through Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and Turkey (see news9TurkNabucco&HuT-Aug31-09).
A man with big geo-political ambitions, Shaikh Hamad expects these powers to get the Saudi leadership to allow the Nabucco-bound Qatari gas to pass through its territory. So far Riyadh has been opposed to let Qatari gas to pass through its territorial waters towards markets in Kuwait and Bahrain. But Shaikh Hamad and Gul have agreed on joint efforts to persuade the Saudi leadership to let this project pass (see Qatar's decision makers in omt12QatrWhoSep21-09).
Doha is focusing its efforts on a series of other projects, including a 250,000 b/d oil refinery (see down10QatrRefSep7-09). Doha is serious about pushing on with a host of other projects designed to increase the emirate's oil and gas production (see gmt9QatrGeoAug31-09).
A jump in Qatar's crude oil production capacity since mid-1995 has been the result of about $50 bn invested by the state and international oil companies (IOCs) in petroleum upstream and downstream projects. Before the June 1995 coup d'etat, in which Shaikh Hamad ousted his father, Qatar's crude oil production capacity was 405,000 b/d, including its 15,000 b/d share from al-Bunduq. At the time, production was confined to QP's fields, which now are producing 360,000 b/d (see omt10QatrFieldsSep7-09).
IOCs now are producing over 480,000 b/d, more than 57% of the country's total crude oil output, compared to 197,000 b/d in mid-June 1997 and zero in 1994 (with the exception of al-Bunduq). Their production capacity has risen from 285,000 b/d in August 2003 to more than 620,000 b/d and should exceed 850,000 b/d by 2012.
QP's external arm, QPI, is investing heavily on new LNG receiving-and-regasification terminals in Europe and the US as well as in other branches of the petroleum sector. Qatar is a member of the six-state Arab Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC). But unlike most other GCC states, Qatar is occasionally regarded as a "rebel" in that it does not always follows Saudi-guided policies, maintaining close relations with the Iran-led axis of anti-US/anti-Israel forces in the Greater Middle East (GME).
At the same time, however, Qatar hosts the largest military base for the US in the GME and have never severed all links with Israel. It owns the most controversial pan-Arab TV network, al-Jazeera, which is often at odds with the GME allies of the Western camp. In fierce competition with al-Jazeera is the Saudi-owned pan-Arab satellite TV al-Arabiya which now daily covers the minutest development in Iran's current crisis and its spill-over effects on Iraq, Lebanon and other parts of the GME (as explained in next week's Diplomat Package, rim3IrqShi'aBlcSep7-09).
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