February 23, 2007	Friday	Safar 5, 1428

RAS LAFFAN, Feb 22: Qatar on Thursday launched a mega gas-to-liquids (GTL) project in partnership with Royal Dutch/Shell that will cost up to $18 billion, 10 billion of which have already been earmarked.

The foundation stone for a plant at Ras Laffan Industrial City, 80 kilometres (50 miles) north of the capital Doha, was laid by Crown Prince Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani and Britain's Prince Charles, who arrived in Qatar from Kuwait on the second leg of a Gulf tour.

“A total of $10 billion of contracts have already been awarded for the project, including all major engineering, procurement and construction,” which began in the third quarter of 2006, said a joint statement by state-run Qatar Petroleum (QP) and Anglo-Dutch energy giant Shell.

“The total cost of the project will be around $12 to 18 billion,” Simon Buerk, external affairs manager for the Middle East, South Asia and North Africa at Shell Gas and Power, told AFP on the sidelines of the ceremony.

The launch came two days after QP and US energy major ExxonMobil Corp announced they had shelved plans for a multi-billion-dollar GTL project.

A development and production-sharing agreement on the new project, dubbed Pearl GTL, covers offshore and onshore project development and operation, with Shell providing 100 per cent of funding, the statement said.

“Upstream 1.6 billion cubic feet (45.3 million cubic metres) of wellhead gas will be produced, transported and processed per day to produce 120,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day of condensate, liquefied petroleum gas and ethane,” the statement said.

Downstream dry gas will be used as feedstock to produce 140,000 barrels per day of clean, high quality GTL fuels and products.

The plant “is expected to produce some three billion barrels of oil equivalent wellhead gas over the period of the development and production sharing agreement,” it added.

Qatari Energy and Industry Minister Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiyah, who chairs QP, said in remarks published on Thursday that production would start in 2010.

The statement said Pearl GTL was “not only the world's largest integrated GTL project, but also the largest energy project” in Qatar, which has the world's third largest gas reserves and is investing billions of dollars in a push to become the biggest LNG exporter.

The Gulf state's giant North Field has proven reserves of more than 900 trillion cubic feet (25 trillion cubic metres) of natural gas, amounting to more than 15 per cent of global proven gas reserves.

“Pearl GTL will help create upstream and downstream value for Qatar by converting natural gas into clean, valuable liquid hydrocarbon products,” said Royal Dutch/Shell chief executive Jeroen van der Veer.

“We intend to make Qatar the GTL capital of the world,” Attiyah said.

The British embassy in Doha said Qatar will become Britain's biggest supplier of LNG next year. —AFP