Qatar is standing firm against the Saudi and Emirati-led efforts to isolate it and this week sent a message that it’s business as usual. The past week has seen ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods meet Qatar’s Emir in Doha, a preliminary agreement reached to export 2.5mn tons/year of LNG to Bangladesh and US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson (Woods’ predecessor at Exxon) meet Qatar’s Foreign Minister in Washington DC.
The common denominator? Qatar’s 858 tcf of natural gas reserves, which BP’s Annual Statistical Review puts as the third largest in the world behind Russia and Iran. Many of the world’s largest oil and gas firms have investments in Qatar and ExxonMobil is the biggest investor of the lot. Qatar produced just under 78mn tons of LNG in 2016, of which ExxonMobil has stakes in projects that produced 62mn tons. (CONTINUED - 1516 WORDS)
