H E Saad bin Sherida Al Kaabi, Minister of State for Energy Affairs and President and CEO of Qatar Petroleum, has stated that there is no question of Qatar cutting its gas production to influence the market price.
In an interview with CNBC International, H E the Minister reaffirmed that Qatar, the world’s largest LNG producer, will go ahead with its original plans to ramp up gas production. “We will not consider cutting production either to control the market or to cater for the price decline,” he said.
H E the Minister said Qatar is in full steam ahead with its expansion plans in the energy sector. “We are going to award all our contracts for North Field expansion projects. Our planned expansions are in two phases. We are going from 77 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) to110mtpa by 2025 and then up to 126mtpa by year 2027.”
Read: Flooding oil market was a “very big mistake”: Minister Al Kaabi
H E the Minister said Qatar’s full supply chain will be up and ready by the time all developments are in place. “We have already placed orders for all shipping requirements at a cost of $20bn, just a couple of weeks ago. We have booked up 60 percent of the entire world capacity of building LNG vessels.” H E the Minister dismissed the possibilities of cost-cutting in Qatar’s energy sector to absorb the COVID-19 pandemic impact.
“We have already slashed 30 percent in the total spending in oil and gas industry. That’s sufficient for us.” Taking exception to the view that as a ‘low cost’ energy producer, Qatar is “squeezing” global shale market, H E the Minister said the entire oil and gas industry is in lot of pain because of lack of demand and prices going down.
“So higher cost producers, whether its oil or gas, definitely will have an impact”. He said LNG is part of the entire energy system. So if mass transportation stops, lot of the mass users of gas will also get hit. “We have been always an efficient operator. We have always tried to maintain its resources efficiently. Qatar is known for a cost-efficient producer,” H E the Minister said.
