This week’s energy news comes from Doha: UCC Oil and Gas Holding, Qatar’s oil company, confirmed that it is in talks to move into new exploration and production areas in Venezuela. The statement was made by Erik Keskula, its Upstream Director, and comes just a month after the firm signed an association with BP and a subsidiary of the Emirati ADNOC for the gas development of the Loran field, in Venezuelan waters.
📊 What is known (and what is still not)
The package is big: the license granted to BP contemplates exploiting more than four trillion cubic feet of gas in Loran, and tucked into that pie would be both XRG—the investment arm of the United Arab Emirates—and UCC Oil and Gas Holding of Qatar. This is not a memorandum of good intentions: there are participants with financial muscle, technology, and experience in liquefaction. What’s still not on the table are specific investment figures, timelines, or fiscal terms for the other areas that Qatar says it is evaluating.