In an interview to Reuters, Saad Sherida al-Kaabi, chief executive officer of Qatar Petroleum, unveiled company’s plans to be looking for opportunities in the United States and will be investing $20 billion in it over the next few years.
The move came after Qatar, an Arabian Gulf state, quit OPEC this month unexpectedly.
Qatar Petroleum is the world’s top supplier of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and is currently working on new LNG trains for its ambitious domestic expansion plans by the middle of next year for which Al-Kaabi on Sunday also stated the aims of his company to carry on its expansions plans by itself alone in case foreign firms failed to make good offers.
Kaabi said it could carry out the expansion alone if no good offers from foreign firms were made.
Due to its per year production capacity of 77 million metric tons, Qatar, a small but wealthy country, is enjoying an influential position in the global LNG market and is not only building four mega-Trains for LNG expansion but also planning to boost its capacity to up to 110 million metric tons per year by the year 2023.
In the United States, conventional as well as non-conventional oil and gas are the sectors in which QP has been interested to invest as part of its over $20 billion investment plan.
In Golden Pass LNG terminal in Texas, Qatar Petroleum owns majority of the stakes along with ConocoPhillips and Exxon as small stake holders.
For expansion of its upstream business abroad over next 8 years, company has been aiming to increase its output capacity to pump 6.5 million barrels of oil equivalent per day (boed) which is currently 4.8 million boed.
Expectedly in January, and if not then by the end of next year, decision to progress with the investment project or not, will be finalized by the company as Al-Kaabi said.
