Maersk Oil Qatar is set to expand its Al Shaheen oilfield offshore Qatar in a $1.2 billion plan.

The massive development in Block 5 is said to include three new wellhead platforms, compression modules, a water injection unit, living quarters, bridges, flares and pipelines, says a report in Oil and Gas News, a sister publication of TradeArabia.

The plan is designed to boost output from Al Shaheen to 200,000 bpd in 2004 from about 122,000 bpd last year.

The scheme involves the drilling of about 40 new production wells, 20 new water injectors and conversion of 14 producers to water injectors.

Sources say that Qatar is hoping to eventually raise Al Shaheen's production to 250,000 bpd.

Al Shaheen began production in 1994 from temporary facilities. The current output is from three platform locations. Maersk wants to use additional drilling rigs that can also be used to handle new production before the permanent facilities are in place during 2003.

As part of the agreement, the Danish group will also install facilities to gather and deliver associated gas to Qatar Petroleum's North Field Alpha platform for export to the mainland.

The Al Shaheen field produces a sour (29 to 33 deg API) crude with 1.7 per cent to two per cent sulphur.

Apart from Maersk, TotalFinaElf is planning to commission new production facilities later this year to double production from the offshore Al Khaleej field to 60,000 bpd while Occidental Petroleum plans to add 40,000 bpd of new production at Idd Al Shargi to raise total capacity to 160,000 bpd.