With less than 3 million inhabitants, Qatar has become a crucial country for Europe in its frantic search to replace Russian energy imports.
Together with Australia, this small Middle Eastern country The East is the largest exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG) in the world and a potential commercial ally for the countries of the European Union, which until now cover close to 40% of your needs gas from the Russian market.
This energy dependency between Europe and Russia had not been a major problem until the Kremlin decided to invade Ukraine in February, making the trade relationship increasingly unsustainable.
Europe has already begun to sign long-term agreements to increase gas imports from other countries, but that is not a sufficient solution to offset the potential loss of Russian gas imports.
Take the case of Ale mania, where the 15% of the gas it consumes comes from Russia.
Recently the minister of Economy, Robert Habeck, called for unprecedented measures to reduce dependence and counteract what he considers to be “energy blackmail by the Kremlin”.
It is not enough that Germany receives ships with liquefied natural gas (LNG) from other latitudes, since it needs to build the facilities to process it, a plan that could take three to five years, according to government calculations.
Despite the logistical difficulties and given the urgency of the circumstances, Habeck has said: “We have to try the impracticable”.
And the country put the accelerator to the bottom with the approval of resources to obtain floating LNG terminals, which have the capacity to receive the product from such distant places like the US or Qatar.
This is how Qatar enters the negotiating table in a good position after the start of the war , just at a time when it had already made significant investments to increase production and gas infrastructure.
“There is certainly an opportunity for Qatar,” Karen Young, a researcher senior and director of the Economics and Energy Program at the Middle East Institute think tank, in Washington DC
Expansion plans
The country had in its pl anes expand the export capacity by approximately one 60% for 2027 before the war started, so the medium-term opportunity to provide LNG to Europe “will be a boon, both economically, if the deals go through.” set at current prices, and politically”, he points out.
Being a semi-constitutional monarchy with the emir as head of state, and the prime minister as head of government, Qatar does not have to go through complex decision-making processes, nor do they have to get political support from different parties.
The country’s political system has been considered by Western organizations as an “authoritarian regime”, a description that the Qatari government rejects.
Amnesty International has denounced practices that it considers to be “exploitation and abuse” of migrant workers.
Qatar’s ambitions
LNG is a A form of refrigerated gas whose price is higher than natural gas, but it has a great advantage: it is easier to transport. It can be loaded on ships and does not require the construction of huge gas pipelines with long-term investments of millions.
With the ambition of growing your business, in 2015 Qatar announced plans to increase its LNG exports by 64% for 2027.
Under that plan, the state firm Qatargas reached an agreement to expand the North Field reserve, a giant offshore that extends into deep waters. and one of the largest natural gas deposits in the world.
The expansion would allow the country to increase its LNG production capacity from 77 million to 110 million tons for 2025, just at a time when the demand for the product continues to increase.
Not only Germany has been in talks with Qatar to obtain additional LNG imports. Several of its neighbors have also tried it.
The urgency to obtain new energy sources has become more acute in recent weeks after Russia cut off the supply to Poland and Bulgaria in the midst of the war offensive .
A rich country that gets richer
With more wealth per capita than Switzerland or the United States, Qatar seems be on the perfect path to become even richer.
It is because the increase in demand is also growing in other parts of the planet.
Currently, almost 77% of Qatar’s LNG exports go to Asia, with South Korea, India, China and Japan being the main buyers.
And due to the volume of the market, China became the largest importer of LNG in the world after signing an agreement with Qatar for a period from 15 years.
With the growing demand from Asian and European markets, experts point out that Qatar has all the conditions to obtain contracts profitable.
Although not everything will be immediate. State-owned giant Qatar Energy is pumping at full capacity and most shipments are being sold under multi-year contracts that Doha says it will not cancel to divert supplies to Europe.
In any case, some firms such as Morgan Stanley hope that Europe’s decision to import gas from other nations will drive an increase in 60% in global LNG consumption for 2015.
While that scenario continues to take shape, Qatar’s economy would grow more than 4% this year, according to Citigroup.
This is the largest jump since 2019.
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