ConocoPhillips Joins List of Companies Investing with QatarEnergy in North Field East Expansion Project

Doha, June 20 (QNA) - QatarEnergy announced that it has selected ConocoPhillips as a partner in the North Field East (NFE) expansion project, with the latter acquiring 3.1 percent of the $28.75 billion project.
Both Italy's Eni and TotalEnergies also took stakes in the project, worth 3.1 percent and 6.3 percent respectively. QatarEnergy will announce tomorrow Tuesday another partner in the development of the field.
HE Minister of State for Energy Affairs Saad Sherida Al Kaabi, who is also the President and CEO of QatarEnergy signed the partnership with Chairman and CEO of ConocoPhillips Ryan Lance. The partnership extends to 2054.
Pursuant to the agreement signed today, QatarEnergy and ConocoPhillips will become partners in a new joint venture company (JV), in which QatarEnergy will hold a 75% interest while ConocoPhillips will hold the remaining 25% interest. The JV in turn will own 12.5% of the entire NFE project, which has a total LNG capacity of 32 million tons per annum.
In his remarks during the ceremony, HE Minister Al Kaabi said: "Today, we sign a new partnership agreement that will further enhance our relationship and enable us to benefit from the wide experience of ConocoPhillips in the development of the worlds largest LNG expansion project. Our work together will enable us to meet our target of increasing the State of Qatars LNG production capacity from 77 to 110 million tons per annum through the North Field East project, which will start production in 2026." "Our collaboration will help produce cleaner energy to meet growing global demand and achieve a realistic energy transition towards achieving our climate change objectives thanks to the projects industry-leading environmental attributes, including carbon capture and sequestration and other technologies deployed in this project," HE Minister Al Kaabi added HE the Minister stressed that, even though in their role as producers they like healthy prices, current prices were too high and could destroy demand. His Excellency also stressed that energy producers do not want a broke customer, and added that current high prices are causing an economic slowdown around the world. His Excellency said that he expects more LNG shipments will head to Europe as production comes on line. His Excellency noted that 80 percent of Qatari LNG now goes to Asia, but that the percentage of LNG going to Europe will increase overtime to 40-50 percent.
Qatari production will help maintain the country's position as one of the world's largest suppliers. The Northeast Field will increase Qatar's LNG production capacity for the first time since 2011. Despite that, Qatar will remain the second largest LNG exporter in 2028 behind the United States.
In his remarks during the press conference, Lance said that "ConocoPhillips is delighted to build on our long history of partnering with QatarEnergy and participate in this next phase of development of Qatar's North Field," "We recognize that LNG plays an increasingly important role in energy security and the global energy transition," Lance added.
He noted that the project will adopt the highest health, safety, and environmental standards, including the use of Carbon capture technology that will help bring down the project's Carbon footprint to the lowest possible levels.
He also addressed the current volatility in gas markets, saying that no one knows how long this volatility would persist. He stressed however that it was important to prepare for that for months and years to come. (QNA)