Chevron, Shell, Total, ConocoPhillips and Maersk Oil Qatar have submitted bids to operate Qatar’s biggest offshore oilfield, according to industry sources
Qatar Petroleum received proposals to enter into a production sharing agreement to operate the Al-Shaheen field, which currently produces 300,000 bpd, the sources added. State-run Qatar Petroleum will choose an operator this year, they said.
Al-Shaheen accounts for about half of Qatar’s daily crude output and the same share of Maersk’s production. Qatar pumped 670,000 bpd in April, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
The country, the third-smallest oil producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), is the world’s biggest exporter of LNG. Sales of oil and LNG have made the state of 2.5mn people the world’s richest per capita by purchasing power parity, according to the World Bank.
Maersk Oil Qatar, a unit of Copenhagen-based AP Moeller-Maersk A/S, is the current operator of Al-Shaheen field and has developed and managed the Persian Gulf field since 1992. Its agreement with Qatar Petroleum ends in mid-2017.
