Speech byH.E. Abdullah Bin Hamad Al-Attiyah
Second Deputy Premier, Minister of Energy and Industry
Chairman, Qatar Petroleum
on the Occasion of the
11th International Middle East Gas (MEGAS) Summit 2006
19-21 February, 2006
Doha, Qatar
Ladies and Gentlemen:
It is my pleasure to welcome you all to the 11th International Middle East Gas Summit, and to have you all in Doha. The conference is taking place at a time when the world has witnessed steadily higher oil prices during the last two years and the level of uncertainty about prices and supplies is also high. The higher oil prices are expected to further accelerate the pace of natural gas industry development. I anticipate a flourishing of the environmental friendly gas industry in meeting the global energy demand. This summit is indeed a good opportunity for the professionals to deliberate issues and to highlight the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead for the gas industry.
The Middle Eastern countries not only enjoy historical, social, cultural and ethnic affinities, but they are also fortunately endowed with enormous hydrocarbon reserves, and straddle the markets of Europe and Asia. Over the next two decades world dependence on Middle Eastern hydrocarbon reserves is expected to increase as a result of an increasing demand for energy and also as a result of depletion of some of the current oil resources in other parts of the World. For example, the demand for natural gas is expected to increase faster in Europe and Asia than in other regions. Most of the European countries are net importers of oil and gas, and their reliance on imported gas is expected to further increase as their economies gear up to substitute carbon-intensive fuels like coal and oil towards gas. In Asia, China and India are expected to require natural gas for their power generation, domestic use and other industrial uses. Whilst the United States is expected to meet its growing natural gas demand through the import of LNG due to domestic production and pipe gas imports constraints.
Qatar’s huge gas reserves and the careful plans, which have been developed under the able guidance of His Highness Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani, have made possible a tremendous expansion in a relative short time. Our plans are aimed at diversifying our sources of income and achieving stable but adequate economic growth rates. This plan will complement the cash flows from the crude oil business by prudent development of North Field, Petrochemical, Refined Products and other associated industries. The product diversification policy is further harmonized by our market diversification policy whereby Qatar will reach out to new markets that will again help ensure stable economic growth. Historically, Qatar's main markets for its LNG exports were Japan and South Korea, the World's two largest LNG importers. However, Qatar constantly looks for new markets and has started supplying LNG to India. Qatar has successfully finalized a number of agreements to supply large quantity of LNG to a number of European countries and just recently has finalized various deals to supply LNG to the US market.
We have made huge investment in the Ras Laffan Industrial City infrastructure and by 2011 we will be supplying 77 Million tonnes a year of LNG to the world market. Qatar will then have become the world largest supplier of LNG. We have also invested in two LNG receiving terminals in Europe and access to other terminals worldwide are being planned. Qatar is also investing significantly in LNG tankers. We aim to be involved in all aspects of the LNG supply chain to ensure our customer get a secure and uninterrupted supply of gas.
At the beginning of 2007 the Dolphin project will start delivering to our neighbors, the United Arab Emirates and Oman, 2 BCFD of pipeline gas. This shows our commitment to fulfill our close neighbors with their gas needs and hope to do the same with the rest of the Middle Eastern countries in the future. Of course this is in addition to the fulfillment of the fast growing demand for gas by our local market for power, water and industrial uses.
Ladies and Gentlemen: you are aware that gas industry face many challenges and stiff competition from oil and coal in certain regions, therefore it is important for us to support and associate utilization of our gas resources with up to date technology and innovations to over come the obstacles and to win the competition.
The GTL technology facilitates the production of sulfur free, high performance GTL fuels, which are considered to be a viable solution to exhaust emissions that are one of the causes of air pollution. With the increasingly higher demand for environmental friendly diesel, GTL is expected to play a critical role in providing clean fuels for the transportation industry. On the GTL front Qatar will become the global hub for GTL. The ORYX GTL project is expected to be completed shortly, and it will produce 34,000 barrels per day of clean fuel. By 2011 three GTL projects will come on stream that will produce over 300 thousand B/D of environmentally friendly products.
I would like to thank you for your attention and hope that your deliberations on important issues that the natural gas industry is facing will be beneficial for the gas industry.
Thank you and very best wishes for a successful Conference.
This news item was posted on 20-Feb-2006
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