Qatar has begun drilling an exploratory gas well ahead of signing the final development and production sharing agreement (DPSA) with Dolphin Energy for a multi-billion-dollar project to deliver Qatari gas abroad, a Qatar Petroleum spokesman said Friday, December 7.
The drilling was undertaken "to evaluate future production of gas deposits," the spokesman said. It comes ahead of the signing of the Dolphin gas project, which one industry expert in the Gulf told AFP would be in the "coming days."
The Dolphin project aims to create a regional grid taking gas from Qatar to Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Oman and eventually Pakistan. In a project estimated at an overall cost of up to $10 billion, the gas is to be transported by a 350-kilometer (220-mile) undersea pipeline from Qatar to the Abu Dhabi coast.
The gas will be distributed inside Abu Dhabi and neighboring Dubai through existing networks and will be transported between the two through a pipeline for which technical bids have already been submitted. The pipeline will then continue overland to Oman and from there to Pakistan through an undersea pipeline. The extension to Pakistan is expected to cost up to an additional three billion dollars. — (AFP, Doha)
© Agence France Presse 2001
© 2001 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
