Qatar’s North Field expansion comes at right time, says QIB official

Qatar’s North Field expansion comes at right time, says QIB official

“Going forward, with Europe trying to reduce its reliance on Russia, I think very few countries are in a position to be able to step up and Qatar sits in one of those happy spaces to be really able to come up on the global stage and play a major partner to one of the larger economies in the world,” Hemani told a Euromoney Qatar Conference panel session ‘Global and Qatari macro outlook’.

The European Commission plans to cut EU dependency on Russian gas by two-thirds this year and end its reliance on Russian supplies of the fuel "well before 2030". The Russia-Ukraine crisis has prompted the European Union to look for alternatives to Russian gas imports, which constitute about 40% of consumption annually.

The EU’s planned diversification from Russian gas could have important implications for Qatar and, more specifically, QatarEnergy, global credit rating agency Standard & Poor's had said in a report.

Terming that the (North Field) expansion is “very timely”, Hemani said Europe at present imports roughly 77bn tonnes of liquefied natural gas and Qatar supplies 24% of the total.

“There is much more room to grow and it is a win-win situation for both (Qatar and Europe) because Doha is now