NEW YORK, 20 April 2003 — World’s largest oil company ExxonMobil Corp. has all but abandoned a project to develop vast gas reserves in Saudi Arabia, the company’s chief executive was quoted as saying in an interview.
“Given what we can invest for around the world, it just wasn’t competitive,” ExxonMobil Chairman and Chief Executive Lee Raymond said in an interview with Forbes Magazine.
The company did not return calls seeking comment.
The Kingdom had invited top oil multinationals, led by ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch/Shell, to submit final proposals in December on three gas schemes worth a total $25 billion in a bid to settle a lengthy spat over commercial terms.
The Kingdom, which holds the world’s fourth biggest gas reserves, made concessions to the multinationals in September to break an impasse over the amount of natural gas acreage on offer and rates of return on investment.
An Exxon-led consortium including Shell, BP and ConocoPhillips was seeking to invest in the $15 billion South Ghawar project, or core venture one.
The companies wanted access to gas fields that can guarantee enough volume to provide an acceptable rate of return on investment on projects to produce gas and build petrochemical, power and desalination plants.
Saudi Arabia has already said that talks have been suspended on the so-called core venture two — a $5 billion Exxon-led Red Sea package that also involved Occidental and Marathon.
The $5 billion Shaybah development, or core venture three, involves, Shell, ConocoPhillips and TotalFinaElf.
