Qatar Petroleum has received offers for double the equity available to potential partners in the bidding process for the North Field East (NFE) project, according to HE Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, minister of state for energy affairs, the president and CEO of Qatar Petroleum
HE Al-Kaabi stated that Qatar Petroleum was in the process of evaluating commercial offers received for participation in the largest LNG development in the world with a capacity of 32 million tons per annum of LNG, and that Qatar Petroleum had received offers that cover double the offered equity stake.
The NFE project is unique in the LNG world because of its advanced environmental characters, including significant carbon capture and sequestration capacity.
These remarks were made during a Qatar Economic Forum session on “Energy Shifts” in which HE Al-Kaabi was a panelist along with Ben van Beurden, CEO of Royal Dutch Shell; Patrick Pouyanné, chairman and CEO of TotalEnergies and Darren Woods, chairman and CEO of ExxonMobil.
The session, which was also broadcast on Bloomberg TV and its media platforms, focused on the energy transition and the underlying climate change concerns driving net zero emissions targets.
In discussing the ongoing energy transition, HE Al-Kaabi said, “We see natural gas and the energy transition -joined at the hip- and gas/ LNG is part of the solution for a longer term transition. We are investing the majority of our CAPEX in LNG, but we are also investing in renewables such as solar, here in Qatar but also worldwide.”
However, His Excellency Al-Kaabi voiced concern that during the global discussion on energy transition, there is a lack of investment in oil and gas projects, which could drive energy prices higher by stating that “while gas and LNG are important for the energy transition, there is a lack of investments that could cause a significant shortage in gas between 2025-2030, which in turn could cause a spike in the gas market.”
On Carbon Capture and Sequestration, HE Al-Kaabi highlighted the fact that Qatar started decarbonising its LNG a while ago, and that it currently captures and sequesters two million tons per annum of CO2, which will grow to nine million tons by 2030.
In concluding his remarks, HE Al-Kaabi said that in the effort to put policies in place to reduce CO2 level, there is a challenge represented by the bill that has to be paid to bridge that gap, and called for collective work for a carbon pricing mechanism that is fair and equitable and that can be applied seamlessly on a global basis.
