QatarEnergy has added Italian multinational Eni S.p.A to the list of international partners for its mega North Field East (NFE) expansion project.
On Sunday, QatarEnergy’s President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, who also doubles as the Minister of State for Energy Affairs, sealed the deal with Eni’s CEO Claudio Descalzi with a partnership agreement to create a new Joint Venture firm.
QatarEnergy will hold a 75% interest while Eni will hold the remaining 25% interest.
The JV will hold 12.5% interest in the entire NFE project, including the 4 mega LNG trains with a combined capacity of 32 million tonnes per annum (MTPA).
At the signing ceremony, Eni CEO Descalzi said, “This agreement is a significant milestone for Eni and fits our objective to diversify into cleaner and more reliable energy sources in line with our decarbonisation strategy.”
The project will significantly expand Qatar’s LNG export capacity from the current 77 million tons per annum (MTPA) to 110 MTPA.
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By the end of 2025, the US$30 billion investment is expected to start production, and will deploy state-of-the-art technologies to minimise overall carbon footprint, including carbon capture and sequestration.
The deal between Eni and Qatar ends the competitive process started in 2019.
Eni deemed the move “strategic”, as it expands its presence in the Middle East and opens access to a world-leading liquefied natural gas (LNG) producer.
The North gas field is located 80 kilometers (km) off the coast of the Qatar peninsula.
Discovered in 1971, the field is considered to be the world’s third biggest, holding more than 900 trillion standard cubic feet (tscf) of gas in reserves.
The gas field is spread over 6,000km² and is being developed by leveraging the infrastructure of existing projects such as Qatargas phases 1-4, Ras Laffan phases 1-3, and Al Khaleej gas projects.
The offshore field expansion is expected to have a production capacity of one million barrels of oil-equivalent a day, while the onshore processing facility is estimated to produce approximately 32Mtpa of LNG.
