Qatar aims to complete a study into the state of its giant North gasfield in 2009 and hopes to boost its output and exports after that, Qatar’s Energy Minister Abdullah bin Hamad Al Attiyah said.

“I hope at the end of the study in 2009, it will show us where to go,” Attiyah said on the sidelines of a conference in the UAE.
Qatar has put new projects on hold while it undertakes a study of the field after rapid development made the country the world’s top exporter of liquefied natural gas. LNG is gas cooled to a liquid form that can be loaded onto a tanker and exported.
Qatar has said it would only go ahead with a second phase of development at the North field when it was sure it could do so without damaging the reservoir by pumping too hard.
Once the study is completed, Qatar could boost exports through the Dolphin pipeline to the UAE and Oman, Attiyah said.
The $3.5-billion Dolphin project is the first cross-border gas pipeline in the Gulf Arab region and is due to begin supplying the UAE with gas in 2007. Dolphin will later supply neighbouring Oman in 2008.
Attiyah said that Qatar also needed to boost gas output from the field to meet soaring domestic demand for power generation.
“Our power generation needs are increasing very rapidly, the growth in demand for power is one of the highest in the world, he said.
Qatar aims to boost shipments of LNG to 77 million tonnes per year in 2012 from 25-26 million tonnes in 2006.