Other stories: World’s 10 largest oilfield technology companies | World’s 10 largest petrochemicals companies | Oil industry giants: ADNOC | Oil industry giants: Saudi Aramco | Top 10 MENA Region mega projects | Top 10 billion dollar oil deals of the summer | 2009’s winners and losers in the oil industry | 10 events in oil’s history that shook the world | Top 10 Gulf mega projects | Top 10 largest publicly traded oil companies | World’s 10 largest oilfield services companies | World’s 10 largest oil and gas contractors
The director of oil and gas ventures at the state-owned oil giant Qatar Petroleum has said that the moratorium that is current in place regarding further development of the Gulf state’s vast North field gas reservoir will be in place until at least 2014.
Addressing delegates at the International Petroleum Technology Conference (IPTC) in Doha, Saad al Kaabi reiterated previous comments regarding the issue by saying that whatever decision is taken would be in the best interests of Qatar.
“Gas production will have increased 28 fold by 2015 compared to when we first started developing the field in 1991,” Kaabi said.
“New North Field development decisions will not be taken before 2014. It has to be understood that 2014 is a decision point for the field. A decision will be taken at that time taking into account what is best for the field and what is best for the country [Qatar],” Kaabi added.
Kaabi also said that if a decision is made to expand production from the North Field then current facilities will be expanded rather than new facilities constructed.
“If we think about export our strategy is going to be about expanding the current facilities. There will be no grass roots projects,” Kaabi said.
The IPTC is taking place between the 7-9 December in Doha, Qatar. Several high-level delegates and speakers are attending the conference from companies such as Saudi Aramco, QP, ExxonMobil, Shell, Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) and Kuwait Oil Company.
