HOUSTON, April 29 (UPI) -- U.S. supermajor ConocoPhillips announced that it ended its partnership with an oil company in Abu Dhabi to develop the Shah gas field.
ConocoPhillips said it looked forward to future collaboration with the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company but ultimately pulled out of the deal for the gas field.
"The Shah gas field will be a world-class project that will develop a key resource for Abu Dhabi and the region and it was a difficult decision not to participate in a project of this importance," said Ryan Lance, senior vice president, E&P International, ConocoPhillips.
Neither company issued public details of the deal, though industry analysts said the U.S. company was overly optimistic in an effort to establish a footprint in the Abu Dhabi market.
"I'm not too surprised," the Emirati newspaper The National quoted Samuel Ciszuk, the Middle East energy analyst with the international consulting firm IHS Global Insight as saying. "It was a very tight deal in terms of margins for the company."
The Shah gas field was discovered in 1966. Its expected production was predicted to reach 1 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day.
