Energy Japan’s Cosmo extends oil production deal with Qatar By Reuters December 25, 2022, 7:04 AM Reuters/Ahmed Jadallah Saudi Aramco is expected to cut the official selling price for Arab Light crude in August by about 50 cents a barrel from the prior month Japan’s Cosmo Energy Holdings Co Ltd said on Friday it has signed a new agreement with state-run QatarEnergy to continue its operation in the Al-Karkara and A-Structures oil fields, which came into effect after the expiry of the current contract this month. Japan’s Qatar Petroleum Development (QPD), 75 percent owned by Cosmo Energy Exploration & Production and 25 percent by trading house Sojitz Corp, has been developing and producing crude oil in the fields, located offshore Qatar, for 25 years since the signing of the current contract in 1997. Japan’s third-biggest oil refiner declined to comment on details of the new agreement, but it is a five-year agreement, succeeding the development and production sharing agreement signed in Dec. 1997, Qatar Energy said in a separate statement. The fields started production in March 2006, and since then have produced a total of 33.5 million barrels of crude oil, according to Qatar Energy. Cosmo’s oil output stood at 45,157 barrels per day in the financial year ended in March 2022, a company spokesman said.