Qatar Petroleum plays the field

While the focus is on domestic gas, the Qatari firm is hedging locally and internationally

State-owned Qatar Petroleum (QP) completed at the start of July a $12.5bn international bond issue, its first for 15 years, to fund what it terms “ambitious growth plans”. The main focus of the company is Qatar’s vast North Field East (NFE) expansion project, which will likely cement Doha’s dominance of the global LNG market. However, the acquisition of upstream interests in South Africa three days later was a reminder that neither possession of an 870tn ft³ (24.6tn m³) domestic gas bounty nor mounting global decarbonisation pressure have deterred the firm from maintaining other strings to its hydrocarbons bow. International diversification is a longstanding QP aim. But it has gained added i