Danish shipping and oil company A P Moeller-Maersk has signed a $5 billion investment plan to expand its Qatar oil field, but production is still a distant prospect in many of the other countries where Maersk is looking for oil.

Maersk produces oil in the Danish and British part of the North Sea, in Qatar, Algeria and Kazakhstan, but in countries such as Brazil and Germany, oil and gas production will not happen any time soon, the company said.
“Exploration drillings in Brazil and the German part of the North Sea during 2005 have unfortunately not shown any commercial volumes of oil and gas,” deputy director of Maersk Oil & Gas, Anders Wurtzen, said.
Maersk last month announced a $5 billion investment plan to expand its Al Shaheen oilfield in Qatar, which will more than double the field’s production to 525,000 barrels per day (bpd) by 2009.
In August, Maersk took over in a $2.95 billion deal Kerr-McGee’s  10 oil fields and a number of oil and gas discoveries.