Dubbed the largest energy project in the Middle East, the 364-km undersea pipeline from Ras Laffan in Qatar to Taweelah in the UAE will transport some two billion cubic feet of compressed and refined gas daily. France's Total and Occidental Petroleum of the United States each hold a 24.5 per cent stake in Dolphin Energy Ltd, which owns the project, with the remaining 51 per cent stake held by the Abu Dhabi-owned Mubadala Development Company. "The export pipeline was completed in August. Production platforms in Qatar have also been completed," Dolphin Energy CEO Ahmad Al-Sayegh told a small group of reporters on the sidelines of the Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition and Conference (ADIPEC). "We expect first gas to start flowing in the summer of 2007. The project is on schedule and proceeding very well," Sayegh said of the $3.5bn investment. "Receiving facilities in the UAE, the giant gas processing plant in Ras Laffan and the production wells are in the final stage of completion," he added. The flow of gas will reach its targeted quantity by the end of 2007. Gas will first go to contracted customers in Abu Dhabi, Dubai and the five other emirates that make up the UAE and in 2008 to Oman, which will receive 200 million cu ft daily. Sayegh said Dolphin Energy was unaware of protests by neighbouring oil giant Saudi Arabia that the pipeline would pass through its territorial waters. "We have not received any objection from Saudi Arabia. The project is progressing well," he said. Riyadh is reported to have written to one of the lenders objecting to the venture on the grounds that the undersea pipeline will pass through its Gulf waters. A Gulf industrial source familiar with the project however said the Saudi objection "could be understood in the context of the Saudi-UAE 'silent' dispute over the giant Shayba oilfield" in the Empty Quarter, the desert region which straddles the border between the two countries. "The two nations are currently engaged in talks at a high political level to sort out their differences regarding the two issues," the source told AFP, requesting anonymity. Dolphin Energy said in July the pipeline will pass only through the UAE and Qatar's maritime zones, adding that it received the necessary approval of authorities in both countries. The pipeline has a capacity to transport 3.2 billion cu ft of gas per day, but additional gas requires a new agreement between the two countries. "There is potential for many new customers, but there is not enough gas. Any further expansion requires a new agreement with the Qatari authorities," Sayegh said. The Dolphin gas project also involves the transportation of raw natural gas from Qatar's North Field, the world's largest gas field, through an 80-km pipeline to Ras Laffan for processing. In January 2004, the first supplies of natural gas from Oman were received by pipeline at a control station in the UAE, marking the first ever cross-border gas transmission between Gulf Arab states. The Omani supplies will later be replaced by Qatari gas. Need for natural gas in the UAE is forecast to grow rapidly to about six billion cubic feet daily by 2020 and most of it will be used for power generation and water desalination plants. The UAE, which is an Opec member, holds the world's fifth-largest gas reserves, but a sizable portion of it is sour gas with a high concentration of sulphur, according to experts attending ADIPEC. PINAFP