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Qatar, which has been a member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) since 1961, has announced plans to leave the OPEC on 1 January 2019. Qatar’s crude oil production (around 0.7 mb/d since 2010) represents approximately 2% of the OPEC’s total oil output. Most of the domestic oil output is controlled by the state-run company Qatar Petroleum, which holds a majority stake in all the oil and gas project contracts with international oil companies (IOCs). The government said that the move was not politically motivated but rather represents a technical and strategic change, which fits in its long-term strategy.

The country will now focus primarily on its liquefied natural gas (LNG) business and continue to secure its position as the world’s largest LNG exporter. In recent years, the government has been moving forward with the reorganisation of the LNG business and approved the merger of the two state-owned LNG producers QatarGas and RasGas into QatarGas in January 2018.

In September 2018, Qatar raised its LNG capacity expansion target, from 100 Mt/year to 110 Mt/year, representing an increase of 43% from its current production capacity of 77 Mt/year. State-run leading market player Qatar Petroleum now plans to build a fourth LNG train of around 8.6 Mt/year, on top of the three 7.8 Mt/year train previously announced and expected in 2024, adding 32 Mt/year of liquefaction capacity. This expansion is expected to strengthen Qatar’s leading position on the global market.

Global energy company Shell has completed the sale of its shares in Shell E&P Ireland Limited (SEPIL), which holds a 45% interest in the Corrib gas venture (Ireland) for a total consideration of €1.14bn (US$1.3bn) to a wholly-owned subsidiary of Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB).

South African power utility Eskom has started Stage 1 and Stage 2 loadshedding procedures, which means that it needs to shed up to 2,000 MW nationwide in order to face operational issues such as the deterioration of the domestic coal-fired power plants. The included power capacity is taken off the grid nationwide to prevent the collapse of the system.

The two houses of the National Diet (Parliament) of Japan have passed a bill meant to promote the use of the country’s territorial waters for the development offshore renewable power generation facilities, which will be enforced next spring.

The German Federal Network Agency (Bundesnetzagentur or BNetzA) has set the maximum price for the next planned onshore wind power tender in 2019 at €6.2c/kWh, which is lower than in 2018 (€6.3c/kWh) and 2017 (€7c/kWh). However, this level is higher than expected in order to enable projects located at less productive locations to compete successfully.

US-based oil and gas company Anadarko Petroleum a consortium consisting of TechnipFMC and Van Oord as the preferred tenderer for the engineering, procurement, construction (EPC) of the offshore subsea system of the Mozambique LNG export project on the Afungi peninsula in the Cabo Delgado province of northern Mozambique.

Russian state-run energy company Gazprom has reviewed the progress of the 55 bcm/year Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project between Russia and Germany and reports that 300 km have been laid so far. Pipelaying is currently underway in both German and Finnish territorial waters, while it is under preparation in the Russian section.

Danish and Polish gas transmission grid operators (TSOs) Energinet and Gaz-System have both made positive investment decisions for the development of the proposed 10 bcm/year Baltic Pipe gas interconnection project. The construction is now set to start in 2020 and the commissioning date is expected in 2022. Meanwhile,…

A federal judge has ruled that TransCanada could begin some pre-construction activities on the long-delayed 830,000 bbl/d Keystone XL oil pipeline project (United States). The ruling includes project development activities such as engineering and awarding contracts. It clarifies a previous one issued earlier in November 2018 that halted works on the project.