Top LNG exporter Qatar will achieve full export capacity of 77 million tonnes per year by the end of 2011, the head of the state-owned oil marketing company has said.
The country already has the world’s largest capacity to ship super-chilled gas and exported its first cargo from the latest plant to come into operation in February.
The plant, Qatargas Train 7, was the last in the country’s expansion plan to reach a capacity of 77 mt of liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports.
Qatar sells around half of its crude to Japan and nearly 90 per cent of its oil products go to Asia, as it is the closest market with the best economics.
Qatargas Train 7 is still ramping up, Saad Abdullah Al Kuwari, chief executive of Qatar International Petroleum Marketing Co (Tasweeq), said in an interview ahead of an industry event in Malaysia.
“Train 7 is almost stabilised and now it is ramping up.
By the end of this year, we will be producing 77 million (tonnes),” he was quoted by The Peninsula as saying.
A 140,000 barrels per day (bpd) gas-to-liquids plant set up under a joint venture between Royal Dutch Shell and Qatar Petroleum, dubbed Pearl, should come on stream by the end of the year and reach full capacity in the first quarter of 2012, he said, adding that Qatar saw strong demand for crude from China, India and also smaller consumers such as Vietnam.
The Pearl plant will be the world’s largest GTL facility and is expected to cost $18 billion to $19 billion.
Tasweeq currently markets 10 million tonnes per year of LPG. Qatargas said in April it would supply 60 extra cargoes of LNG per year to Japan.