Qatar has established itself at the forefront of the countries exporting liquefied natural gas, and international reports of gas producers revealed that Qatar acquired a share of 21 percent of the global gas market from exports during the past year.
Qatar Energy signed the largest and longest agreement in its history with China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation (Sinopec) to supply 4 million tons per year of liquefied natural gas to the People’s Republic of China for a period of 27 years.
It also signed a number of contracts to expand the Northeast gas field, thus marking the first stage in raising the country’s production of liquefied natural gas to 110 million tons. That is, by an increase of 43 percent, it has entered the actual completion phase, so that the four new production lines will hit a date with the year 2025, the date of the start of production.
With the completion of the North Field expansion project, which consists of the eastern and southern parts, which is considered the largest in the history of the LNG industry in the world, Qatar’s exports will rise to 48 million tons annually, which will raise the production capacity of the State of Qatar of LNG to 126 million tons annually in 2026.
This unique project is characterized by the highest health, safety and environmental standards, including carbon capture and sequestration, which aims to reduce the project’s total carbon footprint to the lowest possible levels.
Qatar has the third largest reserves of natural gas in the world, amounting to 24.7 trillion cubic meters, after Russia and Iran, while the United States comes in fifth place with 12.6 trillion cubic meters.
global contracts
Earlier last year, Total Energies, Exxon Mobil, ConocoPhillips, Eni and Shell won contracts to develop the Northeast field, whose investments cost about $28.75 billion. The North Gas Field is a natural gas field that is the largest gas field in the world, containing 50.97 trillion cubic meters of gas. The area of the field is about 9,700 square kilometers, of which 6,000 square kilometers are in Qatar’s territorial waters. The field was discovered in 1971 and production began in 1989. The International Energy Agency (IEA) confirms that the field contains an estimated 51 trillion cubic meters of natural gas, and about 50 billion barrels (7.9 billion cubic meters) of natural gas condensate.
Qatar currently has a nominal liquefaction capacity of 77mtpa, following Australia’s capacity of 88mtpa.
Economic reports stated that Qatar expects to reap additional revenues of $40 billion once it completes the first part of the 2025 natural gas production expansion project, with an increase in its production to 110 million tons by 2026.
The contracts cover the construction of 4 giant LNG production lines with a capacity of 8 million tons per year each, gas processing and liquids recovery facilities, and helium extraction and refining facilities in Ras Laffan Industrial City.
The company said that the project will raise Qatar’s production capacity of liquefied gas to 110 million tons annually by 2025, from 77 million tons currently.
And it expected that the project would produce large quantities of condensate, liquefied petroleum gas, ethane, sulfur and helium, and the company stated that “production is expected to start before the end of 2025, and that the total production will reach about 1.4 million barrels of oil equivalent per day.”
“The total cost of the project amounts to about 105 billion riyals (about $28.8 billion), which makes it one of the largest investments in the energy industry over the past few years,” said His Excellency the Minister of State for Energy Affairs and CEO of Qatar Energy Company, Saad bin Sherida Al-Kaabi. Describing the project as “the largest and most competitive LNG projects ever.” The project “contributes to strengthening the national economy of Qatar with huge financial returns over decades, and construction work and other activities related to the implementation of the project will have a significant impact on stimulating economic activity in various local sectors.” The company said that the project represents the first phase of the planned expansion of liquefied natural gas production in Qatar, to be followed by the project to expand production from the southern sector of the North Field as a second phase.
The company expects to start production in the southern sector in 2027, and it will raise the production capacity of Qatar from 110 million tons of liquefied gas annually, to 126 million tons.
60 tankers to support projects
Qatar Energy also entered into contracts to build, lease and operate 60 LNG carriers as part of its historic shipbuilding program to support the North East Field and North South Field expansion projects, with the expectation that the number will increase to about 100 tankers in the future. When exploration engineers discovered natural gas off the northern coast In the eastern part of the State of Qatar in 1971, no one was fully aware of the importance of that discovery, and the size and importance of the Qatari North Field as the largest non-associated natural gas field in the world was not known until after 15 appraisal wells were drilled over a period of 14 years and it was discovered that it contained quantities of The reserves exceed 900 trillion cubic feet, which is about 10% of the known reserves in the world.
Which makes the State of Qatar the owner of the largest gas reserves in the world after Russia and Iran, and the North Field will continue to supply gas in order to fulfill many renewable contracts to sell gas in large quantities for the next decades.
The North Field is located off the northeastern coast of Qatar and covers an area of more than 6,000 square kilometres, which is equivalent to about half of the land area of the State of Qatar. The development of this great natural resource has been an important factor in the economic growth of the State of Qatar.
The gas produced from this giant field is processed to produce liquefied natural gas, convert gas to liquids, and produce natural gas liquids, in addition to other gas-related industries, and transport gas through pipelines.
Naval operations
Qatargas offshore operations are located on the northern coast, about 80 km from the land areas of the State of Qatar. There are a total of 208 wells that supply 14 lines for the production of liquefied natural gas and 4 onshore lines for processed gas with about 18.5 billion cubic feet per day of sour gas. Gas is transported in addition to condensate. Accompanying to onshore facilities via subsea pipelines.
The Bravo complex and the Charlie complex in the North Field, which became operational in 1996 and 1999 respectively, are located at the heart of Qatargas’ offshore operations. The two complexes contribute approximately 2.8 bcfd of dry gas to the total gas production from the offshore facilities.
In addition to the Bravo and Charlie complexes, there are 17 remote wellhead platforms producing approximately 15.7 bcfd of wet gas through 8 subsea pipelines.
There is a bridge connecting the two complexes, which include residential units, two production platforms, two wellhead platforms, one drilling extension platform and two remote wellhead platforms located about 6 km from the main complex.
The Bravo complex produces 6 billion cubic feet of natural gas from 26 wells, and the Charlie complex contributes an additional amount of 1.2 billion cubic feet per day from 15 wells drilled in a reservoir under the seabed. This wet gas is dried on production platforms for that, and then transported through 32-inch pipelines from the Bravo and Charlie blocks to their onshore LNG pipelines. Qatargas 2 has 30 production wells supplying 2.9 billion cubic feet of wet natural gas per day to onshore trains 4 and 5, while Qatargas 3 and Qatargas 4 each supply 1.4 billion cubic feet of wet natural gas per day to the onshore trains. The sixth and seventh, respectively, and the total number of wells shared between the two projects is 33 wells.
ground operations
Qatargas onshore operations occupies a site in Ras Laffan Industrial City on an area of 7.8 square kilometres. The original facility consisted of only 3 lines to process natural gas produced from offshore facilities to convert it into an export product known as liquefied natural gas. The production capacity of these first three lines is 10 million tons of gas. LNG daily.
Then a new era of giant lines began, through advanced technological methods. The fourth and fifth Qatargas lines started operating in 2009 with a production capacity of 7.8 million tons per year each, then the production of the tenth Qatargas line began in late 2010, followed by the seventh Qatargas line in The beginning of 2011, and the production capacity of each of them is 7.8 million tons annually.
Qatargas onshore facilities include 14 LNG lines, of which 6 are giant lines (each with a production capacity of 7.8 million tons per year). As for processed gas, which is supplied to the local market through pipelines, Qatargas operates the first and second Gulf gas lines for supply by about two billion feet. cube daily.
