Qatar’s Minister of State for Energy Affairs Saad al-Kaabi said this week that the 1.4bn cfd Barzan gas project (QP 93%, ExxonMobil 7%) is on course to start up by the end of the year. The $10.3bn project is slated to supply gas to the domestic market, but has been beset by delays that have pushed startup well beyond the initially planned 2014 (MEES, 12 October 2012).

Mr Kaabi told MEES in late 2017 that the latest delays were “because we have had issues with the pipeline. That is not a secret. The contractor did not perform as well as we wanted them to…we are proceeding to rectify the issues and hopefully in a couple of years that will be fixed… all of the onshore facilities are finished and ready, the wells are done. It is the pipeline that had an issue” (MEES, 8 December 2017). (CONTINUED - 140 WORDS)