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| Photo Credit: AP. |
DOHA, Qatar (AP) — State-owned oil and gas company Qatar Energy signed on Saturday a deal with Total Energies for the Northfield South Expansion.
The
partnership deal was signed by Saad Sherida al-Kaabi, Qatar’s Energy Minister
and Patrick Pouyanne, Total Energies chief Executive, and took place in Doha,
Qatar.
The deal
comes at a time when Europe is searching for alternative sources of energy away
from Russia.
The
Northfield expansion project is made up of two distinct parts, namely the
Northfield East or NFE project, which will increase the state of Qatar’s LNG
production capacity from 77 to 110 million tons per annum, and Northfield South
or NFS project, which will further increase Qatar’s liquefied natural gas or
LNG production capacity from 110 to 126 million tonnes per annum.
Al Kaabi
said Total Energies will have an effective net participation interest of 9.375%
in the NFS project, out of a total of 25% available for international partner
participation, while Qatar Energy will retain 75% interest. Other partners in
this project will be announced in due course.
NFS is the
world’s largest LNG development, and according to Al Kaabi “enjoys the advanced
environmental characteristics, including significant carbon capture and
sequestration technologies and capacity.”
In June and
July of this year, Qatar Energy and Total Energies made five separate
partnership announcements for the NFE project that will cost around $29 billion
to construct.
Qatar is
among the world’s top liquefied natural gas exporters and its state-owned
company operates all of the country’s oil and gas exploration and production,
making the peninsula-nation among the world’s richest per capita. The tiny
country, which borders Saudi Arabia to the east, shares control with Iran of
the world’s largest underwater natural gas field in the Persian Gulf.