Qatar Petroleum is calling for bids for offshore gas exploration to be submitted in early 2011 according to people familiar with the auction, Bloomberg reported.
The block A bids off the coast of Qatar are due on January 9 next year according to two unnamed sources, the newswire said.
Qatar, which is the world’s biggest LNG exporter, is aiming to achieve 77 metric tonnes – or 3.75 trillion cubic feet – per year of LNG production capacity by year end and has targeted 23 billion cubic feet a day output by 2014 to boost domestic industries and power plants, the newswire said.
The country has offered exploration rights to three companies over the past two years, according to Bloomberg.
A joint venture between Royal Dutch Shell and China National Petroleum Corp signed a 30-year exploration and production sharing agreement in May for an area called block D, Cnooc of Hong Kong signed a 25-year agreement with Qatar Petroleum in August 2009 to search for gas in a separate offshore block.
In separate news, earlier in the month, Japan’s fourth largest oil refiner, Cosmo Oil, said that it had abandoned commercial production from the Block 11 offshore oil field saying that it could not find enough oil reserves in the block following the drilling of two trial wells.
Cosmo’s wholly owned subsidiary, Cosmo Energy Exploration and Development, acquired a 29.5% stake in the field in 2008. Its partners under the Exploration and Production Sharing Agreement (EPSA) on Block 11 were Germany’s Wintershall (41%), the operator, and Anadarko Qatar Block 11 Company (29.5%), a subsidiary of Andarko Petroleum Corporation.
