Qatar continues to diversify its reach with Jordan delivery

As a potentially lucrative market for many years hence, Jordan is a good target for Qatar. Unusually, in the Middle East region, the country has almost no hydrocarbons resources that are yielding meaningful energy levels, with proved oil reserves at just 1 million barrels and proved natural gas reserves at slightly more than 200 billion cubic feet. Although there are promising oil shale resources, Jordan has yet to exploit them, to the degree that energy imports are required to meet more than 90 percent of the country’s energy demand, accounting for more than 40 percent of its budget.

Additionally propitious for Qatar is that the volumes of natural gas imports flowing into Jordan from its main supply route - the Arab Gas Pipeline that runs from Egypt – fell dramatically in 2011 and 2012 as a result of political turmoil in the Sinai Peninsula, and remain highly prone to disruption as a result of ongoing military action in and around Syria. The same sort of problem has also negatively affected Jordan’s key plan to bolster its energy security that revolved around Iraq sending oil from Basra to Aqaba, to the tune of up to 100,000 barrels per day, and a natural gas pipeline to run along the same route, carrying up to 100 million cubic feet per day for Jordan.

This competitive edge was further underlined recently by another landmark delivery to a Middle Eastern neighbour, Dubai, which chose Qatar over other regional alternatives.

One of the key strengths of Qatargas amongst its regional competitors in particular has been, and remains, the flexibility of LNG delivery options that it can offer its customers, including both land-based LNG receiving terminals and Floating Storage and Regasification Units (FSRUs). This competitive edge was further underlined recently by another landmark delivery to a Middle Eastern neighbour, Dubai, which chose Qatar over other regional alternatives. The end of last year saw the first LNG delivery by Qatargas on board a Q-Max vessel to the Dubai Supply Authority (DUSUP) LNG Terminal located at the Jebel Ali Port.

The Q-Max LNG vessel Lijmiliya – which, at 345 metres long and with a capacity of 263,000 cubic metres, ranks as one of the largest LNG vessels in the world – was loaded with 150,000 cubic metres of LNG in the Port of Ras Laffan. From there it later pulled alongside DUSUP’s 125,000-cubic metre FSRU Golar Freeze, which is moored at a jetty in the Jebel Ali Port to unload the cargo, a process which took two days.

The LNG destined for Jordan was loaded on board the FSRU, Golar Eskimo, at Ras Laffan Port, which is to be permanently moored on the Red Sea coastline in Aqaba.