Total to hold Abu Dhabi talks on oil rights, gas field development

Total CEO Christophe de Margerie (right) greets an Emirati official as France’s President Francois Hollande (not in picture) attends a meeting with French and Emirati economic leaders at the Emirates Palace hotel in Abu Dhabi yesterday. Total is looking into a project to produce sour, or high-sulphur, gas at the onshore Bab field in Abu Dhabi, de Margerie said.Bloomberg/Abu DhabiTotal will hold talks in Abu Dhabi about renewing oil production rights in the UAE and developing natural gas fields, the company’s chief executive officer said.The discussions will focus on concession rights in Abu Dhabi that expire next year and on the Bab sour-gas field, Christophe de Margerie said yesterday in an interview in the UAE capital and largest emirate. Total didn’t expect to sign any agreements during his visit yesterday to the Gulf crude producer, he said.Exxon Mobil Corp, Royal Dutch Shell, BP, and Partex Oil & Gas are shareholders with Paris-based Total in output from Abu Dhabi’s main onshore oil fields. Abu Dhabi, which holds most the UAE’s oil, is due to shortlist companies to share in fields producing 1.4mn bpd. The UAE is the sixth-biggest crude producer in Opec, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.“It’s an on-going process,” de Margerie said. “We’re talking about the new concession, talking about our work with ABK and talking about some additional gas.” ABK is an offshore field where the company also has rights.Total is looking into a project to produce sour, or high-sulphur, gas at the onshore Bab field in Abu Dhabi, de Margerie said. Gas from Bab will initially supply local demand, and Total may seek other supplies of the fuel to transport for export from the UAE port of Fujairah on the Gulf of Oman, he said.The company would also be interested in supplying an import terminal for liquefied natural gas that Abu Dhabi plans to build at Fujairah, which lies outside the Strait of Hormuz, a shipping chokepoint between Iran and Oman at the mouth of the Gulf.In neighbouring Saudi Arabia, Total has agreed in principle with state-owned Saudi Arabian Oil Co (Saudi Aramco) to expand the Satorp refinery in Jubail, de Margerie said. The expanded refinery, including a new petrochemical facility, will be called Satorp II, he said. The upgraded complex will supply the Saudi domestic market and may also export, the CEO said, without estimating the expanded plant’s production. Satorp currently processes 400,000 bpd of crude.Total plans to start exploring again for oil and gas in Libya, where crude production has “almost” recovered to levels maintained before the revolt in 2011 against the North African state’s former ruler Muammar Gaddafi, de Margerie said. “Definitely we need to restart exploration in Libya,” he said.The company is also happy to continue working both in southern Iraq and in that nation’s northern self-ruled Kurdish region, he said.