Qatar's Gas Reserves to Last 160 Years

Qatar’s proven gas reserves estimated at 885 tn cubic feet (tcf) will last around 160 years at the 2011 production rates, according to a report by Qatar National Bank (QNB).

The Gulf state has world’s third largest gas reserves, QNB said in its soon-to-be-published ‘Qatar Economic Insight 2013’, Gulf Times reported.

The country has seen a rise in gas production in last few years in order to supply new LNG and GTL facilities; industrial projects, particularly in the petrochemicals sector; and power generation plants, QNB said. Gas production has increased from 6bn cubic feet a day (cf/d) in 2007 to around 15bn cf/d in 2012.

The main driver of higher gas production has been investment in the production of LNG. LNG exports started in late 1996 and stood at 2.2m tonnes per year (tpy) in its first full year of exports in 1997, QNB said.

The future expansion of gas production will be driven by the Barzan project that is estimated to bring on-stream an additional 1.5bn cf/d and new discoveries that are likely to add a further 0.7bn cf/d by 2016.

The share of gas used for LNG is likely to drop as the moratorium on North Field gas remains in place, and the additional output is used for domestic power and industrial uses, Gulf Times said quoting from the report.