Demand for natural gas will keep growing and more supply projects will be required globally beyond 2030, Qatar’s energy minister said.
The comments from one of the world’s biggest suppliers of liquefied natural gas come amid fears of a potential glut later this decade as more projects, including in Qatar, come online. The Middle Eastern country is pressing on with its multibillion-dollar LNG expansion, and may consider adding further capacity if more gas becomes available, minister Saad Al-Kaabi said in Doha.
“If we have a reasonable economic growth going forward, I think you’ll see all that supply and demand will catch up and you’ll need another phase of development of gas in the 2030s,” he said at the Qatar Economic Forum. “I don’t think gas is going away anytime soon.”
The LNG market has been tight since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine knocked out piped gas supplies to Europe, forcing the continent to import more liquefied fuel. It’s likely to flip into a surplus as a wave of new LNG developments brings fresh supply from about 2026, despite some projects in the US facing delays.
Qatar is boosting its LNG capacity to 126 million tons a year by 2027 from 77 million a year currently. It’s targeting 142 million a year by the end of the decade. Projects by other countries, including in Africa, are also planned.
Al-Kaabi said all that new supply won’t be enough as expanding economies and populations drive up demand. Power from gas, for example, provides reliable backup to intermittent renewable energy, he said.
The government of the State of Qatar is the underwriter of the Qatar Economic Forum, Powered by Bloomberg.
— With assistance from Ben Bartenstein and Francois De Beaupuy
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