Qatar to double capacity of Ras Laffan refinery

Qatar will double the capacity of the Ras Laffan condensate refinery and is likely to issue contracts for the expansion work in the next few months, Oil Minister Abdullah Al Attiyah said on Monday.

The second phase of the refinery will see Qatar add about 140,000 to 145,000 barrels per day (bpd) of new capacity to the existing plant, he told reporters on the sidelines of the Arab Energy Conference.

Qatar had decided to proceed with the expansion of the Ras Laffan plant because it was more efficient on cost, Attiyah said.

Contracts for work will be issued in the next few months and work could start in 2011, he said.

"We want phase 2 to be less costly," Attiyah said.

The 146,000 barrels per day (bpd) Ras Laffan plant, which produces 24,000 bpd of gas oil, 52,000 bpd of kerosene and jet fuel and 8,000 bpd of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) will be aimed at markets in Southeast Asia and Europe.

Planned maintenance work on two LNG trains in Qatar with a combined capacity of 11 million tonnes per year (tpy) had not been scheduled due to a lack of demand, Attiyah said.

Work on Qatargas 2 train 4 – a joint venture between Qatar Petroleum and Exxon Mobil – which has yet to start whould be completed during the last week of May.

Maintenance on Qatargas 1 train 3, has already started and was schedule to be completed at the end of last week.

Attiyah said Qatar would start producing around 5 million barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd) in 2014, up from current output of 2.7 million boepd.

Qata which has the world' third largest gas reserves, has become a major petrochemical feedstock supplier to Asia as its condensate and natural gas liquids output multiplied in line with the huge volume of LNG plants built over these few years.