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Qatar’s Minister for Energy and Industry, Abdullah bin Hamad Al Attiyah has said that higher demand for his country’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) from China and India is making up for lower demand from other nations during the current financial slowdown.
Qatari daily newspaper The Peninsula, reported that Attiyah, currently in the UK for the Qatargas 2 South Hook Receiving Terminal inauguration said that exports to two of the big LNG consumers, Japan and South Korea, were down while exports to China and India were up.
“China’s needs are still not satisfied. They need huge amounts of gas. So now China is the centre today of the new LNG compass,” Attiyah is reported by the newspaper as saying.
“It is sure that 2009 is a very difficult year for the industrial nations but we believe that growth will come back again. Asian demand for LNG now, in other parts such as India and China, its becoming very high,” he added.
Attayiha further underlined Qatar’s commitment to increasing its investment in its LNG infrastructure and said that despite the current slowdown the country were still on target to produce 77 million tonnes per annum of the gas in 2010.
