Ali Al Hammadi

DOHA • Qatar has put a moratorium on future projects utilizing natural gas from the massive North Field and the freeze is to apparently give Qatar Petroleum (QP) time to conduct field tests on the reserves.

"A decision had been taken sometime ago to freeze any further development in the North Field," Ali Al Hammadi, marketing manager of QP, told the 2nd Middle East liquefied natural gas (LNG) shipping conference here yesterday.

Al Hammadi was answering a question from the audience at the pre-lunch session of the conference being held at the Marriott Hotel.

Qatar will be taking a big share of the world LNG market by 2012, he said. However, when asked to specify targets beyond 2012, he quipped: "77 million tonnes a year capacity is our target for the time being and we would not go beyond that until we have conducted field tests and evaluated results."

A decision had been taken that there would be no more LNG or GTL development in the North Field until then, stated Al Hammadi.

Answering a question at the post-lunch session, Ahmed Al Khulaifi, from Qatargas, said that a large number of mega gas projects being executed currently had additionally prompted Qatar to freeze future projects.

Al Khulaifi is chief operating officer, commercial and supply at Qatargas.

He said that presently work on some 27 EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) contracts were under way at the Ras Laffan Industrial City alone.

These contracts would require something like 60,000 workers a day from November this year until 2008 to construct these facilities.

The facilities are to produce LNG, gas-to-liquids (GTL) and other gas related products and they are located in Ras Laffan alone, stated Al Khulaifi.

Aside from manpower, supplies and raw materials were needed for these projects and to organise them at such a large scale is a challenge. "QP needs to manage these projects successfully, so putting moratorium is a wise decision," he said.

He said that apart from the above projects, a lot of drilling activity was on in the reserves. "Offhand, it is difficult to give an exact estimate (of the drilling activity)," he said.

Responding to another question, Al Khulaifi said earlier that stress was going to be on training in all aspects of the LNG business.

According to Ahmed El Mankhly, from Egypt's Suez Canal Authority, 131.6 million tonnes of LNG was traded the world over last year with Japan being the largest importer (58 mt) while Indonesia was the biggest exporter at 23.3 million tonnes.

Malaysia ranked second in terms of export and Qatar at number three. "However, over the next two to three years, the situation is going to change with Qatar becoming the world's top LNG exporter," said Mankhly.