Sharjah National Oil Corporation completes the first phase of its Hedebah gas-condensate field

A field in a year: Sharjah National Oil Corporation (Snoc) has completed the first phase of its Hedebah gas-condensate field, more than doubling its gas production, according to a statement. The work covered appraisal drilling, gas-gathering infrastructure, pipeline installation, and commissioning. Snoc is accelerating the next stage to raise production in 2027, with plateau output expected by 2028, and it didn’t disclose current production volumes or the field’s expected peak output.

IN CONTEXT- The field was discovered in May 2024, Sharjah’s second major gas discovery since 2020 after the Eni-backed Mahani field, and a second well confirmed additional gas-bearing zones in November 2025.

Snoc builds and operates Hedebah, and part of the return may be in the liquids. Snoc CEO Khamis Al Mazrouei said last year that Hedebah was expected to contain significant liquids alongside its gas, which could increase recoverable condensate and other saleable products. Snoc didn’t disclose what the first phase cost.

More of Sharjah’s gas now comes from domestic fields, with storage as the buffer at peak. Sharjah meets demand from domestic production, contracted imports, and underground storage. Snoc completed the second phase of its Moveyeid storage project in November 2024, which lets it store gas in lower-demand periods and withdraw it at peak. Snoc says Hedebah will make a substantial contribution to meeting future energy demand across the emirate, and the statement doesn’t say whether the extra gas reduces imports.

Hedebah’s gas depends on Sajaa, a 700 mn cf/d processing complex, and the 500 km of pipelines behind it. The field feeds into the complex, according to Snoc’s Sustainability Report 2026 (pdf), and the wider system includes underground storage at Moveyeid and condensate and LPG export infrastructure at Hamriyah Port. Snoc hasn’t said whether further processing, storage, or pipeline upgrades will be needed as Hedebah ramps up toward 2028.

Force of habit

Italy’s Edison is heading for nine months without a Qatari LNG cargo. QatarEnergy will not deliver three more cargoes to the utility, extending force majeure from early December to the end of the year, Reuters reports, which brings the cargoes suspended since April to 38. By end-September, the halt had held back about 4.6 bcm of gas, nearly three-quarters of Edison’s 6.4 bcm annual contract, which covers around 10% of Italy’s consumption, according to Edison.

Edison has replaced part of the missing volume, and Europe’s storage has absorbed some of the rest. Qatari LNG made up around 40% of Edison’s portfolio, and by 28 September the utility had replaced 23 cargoes, about 2.3 bcm of gas, mostly with US spot cargoes through the Adriatic LNG terminal. Across Europe, most missing Qatari volumes had been made up, but buyers didn’t take enough extra LNG to keep storage injections on pace, ICIS gas market specialist Brendan A’Hearn previously told us. Part of the supply gap moved into lower inventories instead of showing up as shortages, he said.

QatarEnergy’s own route around Hormuz starts in 2031: It bought 33 US cargoes for Asian customers by end-July, worth around USD 1 bn, against four in all of last year, and its long-term US supply runs to 2054 but only begins then.

EDF has postponed the sale of its Edison stake over uncertainty about Qatari gas supply, Reuters reported. Two weeks before the latest extension, Edison CEO Nicola Monti said he hoped Qatari deliveries would resume early next year but had no visibility. Edison isn’t looking to exit the contract, which runs to 2034, and wants to discuss extending it by several more years, he added.

What’s next: Force majeure now runs to the end of December, so the next signals are whether QatarEnergy extends it again, when North Field East’s first train starts, and whether EDF resumes its stake sale. No date has been announced for any of them.