Minister of State for Energy Affairs, H E Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi speaking at the Doha Forum, yesterday. PIC: Rajan Vadakkemuriyil
Doha, Qatar: Qatar is ready to support all nations for their LNG needs if it is commercially viable for both sides said, Minister of State for Energy Affairs, President and CEO of QatarEnergy, H E Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi.
Speaking yesterday during the Newsmaker Interview as part of the Doha Forum 2025, Minister Al-Kaabi reaffirmed Qatar’s long-standing commitment to support all nations for their LNG needs. “We have had this position since 2017 when we announced we are going to embark on huge LNG expansion.
“We have announced that we are raising production from 77 million to 142 million tonnes per annum in-country. An additional 18 million tonnes will come from our Golden Pass terminal project in the US,” Minister Al-Kaabi said.
He added, “We have been on the expansion, if you will, for some time. The first LNG train will come online in Qatar, hopefully by the third quarter of next year. In the US, we have started the commissioning of the first train of Golden Pass LNG, which should, hopefully, come online by the end of the first quarter of 2026, followed sequentially by the other two trains in the US.”
“I have no worry at all about demand in the future. I have a worry about lack of investment for additional supply in the future, which will cause prices to spike.
“We think there is a lot of demand going forward. We have about 400 million tonnes of LNG that is being produced today. About 600 to 700 million tonnes will be required by 2035, so around 200 to 300 million tonnes additional LNG will be required, spearheaded by growth mostly in Asia, but also in the rest of the world, there is also something that we never counted on, whether in 2017 or even just a few years back, and that is AI,” the Minister said.
AI is completely different than the normal household power. It is like a factory that requires energy around the clock.
It requires baseload energy that you would need as any country. This is permanent growth day and night; unlike households whose consumption patterns change between day and night, he noted.
Minister Al-Kaabi thanked the European parliament for their decision to eliminate the problematic article 22 from the planned Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), which threatened severe penalties of up to 5% of companies’ global revenue.
He said: “We look forward to the ‘trilogue’ between the EU’s Commission, Council, and Parliament to resolve these issues that are of great concern not only to oil and gas companies, but to all companies.”
Replying to a query about the ambitions for net-zero emissions, the Minister noted that this is not achievable. He said, “For me to say we can do it is a blatant lie. We have not changed our position. However, we are doing something about it. We have the largest CO2 capture and sequestration site in the Middle East and North Africa region with a capacity of 2.5 million tonnes per annum to be raised to 11 million tonnes by 2030 and about 13 million tonnes by 2035.”
