Qatar’s Emir is leading a top-level delegation to major Asian economies as the emirate gears up towards its LNG expansion project. Doha is looking to nearly double its already huge LNG tanker fleet, in preparation for the expansion, enabling it to maintain its control over all facets of the trade. Meanwhile, IOCs are clamoring to be involved in the lucrative multi-billion dollar expansion project.

Qatar aims to boost LNG production capacity by more than 40% from 77mn t/y to 110mn t/y over the next five years (MEES, 9 November 2018). State-firm Qatar Petroleum has put out a tender for six drilling rigs which it says will drill the requisite 70-100 wells to boost gas supplies (MEES, 12 October 2018). (CONTINUED - 779 WORDS)