State-owned petroleum company Qatar Energy (QE) signed an agreement to supply Shell International Eastern Trading Company with up to 18 mb/y (2.5 Mt/year) of crude oil in Singapore for five years starting from January 2024. With its first ever five-year crude sales agreement, the Qatari company seeks to strengthen its relationship with the British oil and gas company Shell as a strategic business partner with whom they have a long-standing strategic partnership through several shared investments.
In October 2022, Qatar Energy selected Shell as its second partner with a 9.375% stake on the 16 Mt/year North Field South (NFS) LNG project in Qatar. This project added to the existing partnership among both companies on the 32 Mt/year North Field East (NFE) LNG project (with a 6.25% stake), alongside TotalEnergies, Italy’s Eni, as well as the USA’s Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips.
Qatar has the world’s third largest gas reserves (23 800 bcm at the end of 2022), just behind Russia and Iran. The Gulf country exports around 60% of its oil production (crude and NGL), as well as almost 90% of its oil products (23 Mt produced, 20 Mt exported in 2022).