Qatar already has the world’s largest capacity to ship super-chilled gas, and exported its first cargo from the latest plant to come into operation in February.

That plant, Qatargas train seven, was the last in its expansion plan to reach capacity of 77 million tons per year (tpy) of liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports.

Qatargas train seven is still ramping up, Saad Abdullah Al-Kuwari, chief executive of Qatar International Petroleum Marketing Co (Tasweeq), said ahead of an industry event in Malaysia.

“Train seven is almost stabilized and now it is ramping up. By end of this year we will be producing 77 million (tons),” he said.

Royal Dutch Shell’s and Qatar Petroleum’s joint venture 140,000 barrels per day (bpd) Pearl gas-to-liquids (GTL) plant should come on line by the end of the year and reach full capacity in the first quarter of 2012, he said.

The Pearl plant will be the world’s largest GTL facility and is expected to cost $18 billion to $19 billion.

Plant operator Shell said in March it had started output from natural gas wells offshore, allowing the first sour gas to flow through a subsea pipeline into the giant GTL plant onshore.

Japan had bought more LNG and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) from Qatar after the massive March earthquake and tsunami, and had also bought more of the oil product naphtha, Kuwari said. Tasweeq currently markets 10 million tpy of LPG.

Qatargas said in April it would supply 60 extra cargoes of LNG per year to Japan.

Japan’s demand would return to more typical levels by August, he said, adding that the crisis would continue to boost demand for LPG and LNG in 2012.

Qatar sells around half of its crude to Japan and nearly 90 percent of its oil products go to Asia as it is the closest market with the best economics, Kuwari said.

Qatar saw strong demand for crude from China, India and also in smaller consumers such as Vietnam, he said.

“There’s still strong demand,” he said.

“Any crude will find a home in Asia.”

That demand meant US crude prices were unlikely to fall below $85 a barrel, Kuwari said.

Qatar is a member of OPEC, due to meet to discuss oil supply on Wednesday. The group is considering boosting supply to meet expected demand growth in the second half of the year, compensate for lost Libyan production and to ease high prices.

By-product from increased LNG production and output from Pearl would allow Qatar to export more condensate and naphtha, Kuwari said.

The volume of condensate and naphtha to be marketed would rise by 15 to 17 percent by the end of 2012, Kuwari said.

Qatar’s condensate production will reach around 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) at the end of this year, up from 340,000 bpd in 2010, Kuwari said.

Qatar’s government last month gave Tasweeq the right to sell around 1 million tpy of naphtha from the country’s Oryx and Pearl GTL plants, Kuwari said.

This would raise Tasweeq’s total naphtha sales volume to 7.5 million tpy by the end of next year, he said. Marketing of Oryx naphtha will start in July. 

Qatargas train seven has capacity to export 7.8 million tons and is 30 percent owned by Royal Dutch Shell.

Qatargas is one of two companies through which Qatar produces LNG. The other is Rasgas, and Qatar Petroleum has a majority stake in both. Qatargas is the largest of the two, with capacity set to reach 42 million tpy, while Rasgas has the remainder of Qatar’s 77 million tpy capacity.