Future of 3 joint cracker projects planned by state-owned Qatar Petroleum undecided

12-Oct-09

Qatar is scrutinizing possible reservoir behavior when gas production will rise to 20 bln ft3/day in 2012 from 8bn ft3/day in 2008. As a result, various projects, such as the second phases of the Dolphin and Barzan gas projects have been deferred and a decision on them will be affected by results of the study. The future of the three joint cracker projects planned by state-owned Qatar Petroleum seems to be in jeopardy. The JV with Honam Petrochemical Corp. has been suspended. A cracker with Shell Chemicals has been delayed to 2015, while the pace of progress of a project with ExxonMobil has slowed down considerably. Qatar has enough ethane for one more cracker of 1.3 mln tpa, which should be on stream in 2013-2014. While the rest of the GCC comprising Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) - is keen to draw more gas from Qatar, the country has extended a moratorium on the development of new gas projects from 2012 to 2014.