Qatar Petroleum (QP) is exploring for oil and gas in Cyprus and Morocco and joining a project to import liquefied natural gas into Pakistan as part of a strategy to expand the Gulf emirate’s global energy investments, Bloomberg reported.
According to Reuters, QP, the world’s largest LNG producer, has been pursuing deals in Cyprus where it “won a bid for 40% of a plot for exploration” and recently “went into Morocco for exploration,” the company’s CEO, Saad al-Kaabi, said.
QP must cope with local limits on growth as it seeks to expand its LNG business and increase its production and reserves of crude oil and gas, as added Al-Kaabi. In line with the national strategy, QP is merging two liquefied natural gas divisions, Qatargas and RasGas Co Ltd, to save hundreds of millions of dollars following a more-than-two-year slump in oil prices that has forced Gulf countries to reduce state spending.
The company is seeking international opportunities as domestic crude output declines and the government bars drilling in the offshore North Field, source of the gas that transformed Qatar into the world’s leading LNG supplier.
Authorities in the Persian Gulf state of 2.6m people imposed a moratorium at the field in 2005 to assess its gas flow and longevity. Qatar’s crude output was down to 615,000b/d in January from a peak of 880,000 barrels in June 2008, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
