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QatarEnergy & TotalEnergies inks partnership deal for North Field East

QatarEnergy & TotalEnergies inks partnership deal for North Field East

QatarEnergy, the state-owned energy firm of Qatar, has reportedly announced that it has inked a partnership deal with the French energy company, TotalEnergies, for the North Field East development of the world's biggest LNG project.

QatarEnergy has further added that more partners would be announced in the following days.

Gulf state is cooperating with foreign oil corporations during the first and biggest stage of a roughly $30 billion expansion of the North Field development.

According to Saad al-Kaabi, QatarEnergy’s president and Qatar's minister of state for energy, the selection procedure for partners has been completed. Subsequent agreements might be revealed as soon as the following week.

al-Kaabi added that TotalEnergies will have a larger share than any other corporation. Meanwhile, Patrick Pouyanne, Chief Executive of TotalEnergies, stated that the firm  will own 25% of one train or purification and liquefaction facility withing the whole project.

Currently, the North Field Expansion project plan includes a total of six LNG trains, which will increase Qatar's liquefaction output from over 77 million tons per annum (mtpa) to around 126 mtpa by 2027.

Major oil companies have been competing for four trains of the project, with the remaining two trains being part of the North Field South extension, the second phase.

According to Al-Kaabi, Qatar has a unified strategy where all four trains are treated as a single entity. With the partnership deal, TotalEnergies has a 25% ownership in one of the virtual trains, giving it a 6.25% stake in the entire fleet.

Al-Kaabi predicted that after the investments are done, Asian customers will account for half of the project's market, with European buyers accounting for the balance.

The development will strengthen Qatar's status as the world's leading LNG supplier as well as help Europe secure long-term gas supplies as it explores alternatives to Russian gas.

Major oil and gas companies have expressed interest in participating in the development, but Qatar's approach has been to set the bar higher for possible partners.

QatarEnergy has been offered possibilities to invest in prize assets held by Exxon, Total, Shell, Chevron, and Eni.

Source credit: https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2022/6/12/qatar-energy-signs-deal-with-total-energies-for-north-field-east

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Omkar Patwardhan

Omkar Patwardhan started his professional career in the hospitality industry. Having nurtured a deep-sated passion for words however, he found his way into content writing and now pens down articles for numerous websites, including News Origins, spanning the sectors of business, finance, and technology.