Gulf Times: Qatar seen taking decision on lifting North Field moratorium by 2016-17
The timing of Qatar’s lifting of the moratorium on its North Field is a matter being closely followed by the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. Howard Rogers, director of the institute’s natural gas research programme, predicts the market for LNG could be quite ‘soft’ in the 2018-2023 window as a result of the large number of LNG projects in Australia, the US, Canada, East Africa and Russia due to come on stream.
“There is quite a lot of potential LNG likely to hit the market in a window which spans 2018-2023. Depending on some big uncertainties on the robustness of US shale gas supply going forward and another huge unknown, namely China’s future LNG requirements, there is potential for quite a soft market in that window,” he said.
Given this scenario, he predicts that Qatar will be looking at the 2023 plus window, which, factoring in the long lead times for development, would imply that a decision on lifting the moratorium would likely be made in 2016-17. He expects RasGas and Qatargas to remain in place as key developers but sees opportunities for “international upstream companies that aren’t yet in Qatar to try and put themselves forward as partners for future development.”
Speaking of Qatar’s policy on developing its extensive gas reserves, Rogers said, “I have to say the North Field and its extension into the Iranian South Pars field probably represents the lowest cost large gas resource as yet undeveloped on the planet. That is particularly the case because you also have the co-production of condensate which has a significant revenue stream that enhances the economics of the whole chain. So from the point of view of the world gas consumer, it would make eminent sense to further develop this resource to provide a reliable, low cost source of LNG. However, from the Qatari perspective, I guess that with such a low population and it already being a very rich country in terms of GDP per capita, the issue is ‘how much more money do we really need?’ MORE