AAt least things are clear in Qatar. Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi is both the energy minister and the CEO of Qatar Energy. It is in this capacity that he signed, on Saturday September 24, a major agreement with Patrick Pouyanné who, in the absence of being a minister, is the boss of TotalEnergies, and takes the place, in the minds of his interlocutors of the Gulf, representative of French interests.
His group will invest 1.5 billion dollars (1.55 billion euros) in the North Field South (NFS) gas field to take 9.4% of the joint venture, of which Qatar will hold 75%. Other partners will be invited to the capital, but TotalEnergies is the first of them.
It maintains close relations with this small emirate which alone is the world’s fourth largest gas producer and, above all, the first in liquefied natural gas (LNG). This process, which allows gas to be transported anywhere by boat, has become strategic for the Europeans since the Russians closed the tap on Nord Stream 1, their main gas pipeline arriving in Germany via the Baltic.
Realpolitik
This rush towards LNG, TotalEnergies anticipated it several years ago, so much so that it predicts that this activity should represent 50% of its sales by 2030. This is why it was also the an early investor in the North Field East award in June. Two billion dollars of investment in this deposit, whose production capacity is estimated at 32 million tonnes per year, twice that of its cousin NFS. The North Field complex, shared with Iran, is currently the largest gas field on the planet.
These two pieces of good news, three months apart, will not change our immediate winter constraints since deliveries will only take place from 2025. Nevertheless: it must have refreshed the atmosphere a little for Patrick Pouyanné who, not content with wiping the continuous criticism of environmentalists, has also had to face the wrath of leftist deputies, who intend to tax his superprofits. Not to mention its controversial presence in the Russian Arctic. For its part, Qatar is accused of mistreatment and ecological crime with the Football World Cup, which will begin on November 20 in air-conditioned open-air stadiums.
The two partners of the day may well explain that the exploitation of the gas will be the subject of a capture of CO2, they will not appease the critics, who believe that the Frenchman abandons one devil to indulge in another. Energy realpolitik, an integral part of the profession since its origins, has its reasons that European reason prefers to ignore.