Royal Dutch Shell $21 billion investment in energy projects in Qatar would make it the largest private investor in the country, surpassing rival ExxonMobil, a senior company executive said on January 26.
Shell expected to complete construction by the end of 2010 on the world's largest energy project, a $19 billion plant to produce superclean fuels from gas, said Gerrit-Jan Smitskamp, the company's regional vice-president for finance.
The plant would cost up to $19 billion. That investment, in addition to the $2 billion it is spending on building a new liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant in the country that would also be completed this year, would make Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell Qatar's largest private investor, he said.
The Pearl gas-to-liquids (GTL) plant is divided into two production lines, or trains. The first would be completed by the end of 2010 and the second in early 2011, Smitskamp said at a MEED projects conference.
"With the first train, we will start commissioning by the end of the year, moving to first production by 2011," he said. The LNG production facility, also known as a train, was also due for completion by the end of the year, he said.
Qatargas train 7, with capacity to produce 7.8 million tonnes per year of gas, would be the last of new LNG trains in Qatar's current expansion plan. It would take capacity in the world's largest LNG exporter to 77 million tpy. Shell has a 30 percent stake in the plant, with the rest belonging to state oil firm Qatar Petroleum. Despite the huge investment, the 140,000 barrels per day GTL project would still be profitable, Smitskamp said.
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