The Qatari energy official said that the construction of the North Field East and South projects are successfully on course amid rising energy needs.

Qatar’s Minister of Energy Affairs, Saad Al Kaabi, discussed the nation’s next phase in global energy usage during a panel discussion at the Qatar Economic Forum on Wednesday.

“When we had announced that we were going to expand further – in the past, we had announced 77 million tonnes going up to 126 million tonnes and we said that we were appraising the field further based on technical results of the field and the capability of the field long term to sustain its production for other projects,” Al Kaabi said during his talk.

He added that after further appraisal, Qatar discovered that capacity could be further increased to an additional 16 million tonnes of production.

Amid the increasing need for gas in the future, the energy official said that Qatar was more than doubling the national energy capacity over the next few years, especially alongside energy partners ExxonMobil and TotalEnergies.

Fellow panellists included Patrick Pouyanné, the chairman of the Board and CEO of TotalEnergies SE and Darren W. Woods, the chairman and CEO of the ExxonMobil Corporation.

“We think there is a big demand in the future and we’re going to expand to meet that demand. But, I think the technical capability of doing more – Qatar is going to be assessed in the future. If there is more, we will probably do more,” Al Kaabi said.

He added that going forward, Qatar will be very “bullish” in the face of increasing energy demands.

He added that the North Field East and South projects are both “on track in the construction” phase.

In February, QatarEnergy announced a new expansion project, North Field West, for its liquified natural gas, set to boost the local production to 142 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) before the end of 2030. 

Alongside his duties as Energy Affairs Minister, Al Kaabi is also QatarEnergy’s President and CEO.

During the press conference where he announced the North Field West project, the energy official said, “These are very important results of great dimensions that will take Qatar’s gas industry to new horizons, as they will enable us to begin developing a new LNG project from the North Field’s western sector.”