Qatar's energy minister has no concerns about Trump's promise to lift LNG export caps
Qatar is not concerned about the promise of Donald Trump, U.S. president-elect, to lift the cap on LNG exports. Qatar's energy minister Saad Al-Kaabi stated on Saturday that his country will cope with any competitiveness.
"And you know, even if we open up LNG, and say that we're going export another 300,000,000 tons or 500,000,000 from the U.S. All these projects are driven primarily by private companies who look at the viability of the projects," Kaabi said, who is the chief executive officer of QatarEnergy (a state-owned company) during the Doha Forum.
Kaabi, when asked about the impact that Trump's return as president would have on Qatar-U.S. energy relations, said that oil and gas projects are multi-decade plans, and they "survive governments". He later added, however, he believed Trump to be "good for business".
Kaabi said that the European Union should review the Corporate Sustainable Due Diligence directive (CSDD), which requires larger companies to operate in the bloc to verify if their supply chain uses forced labour or causes environmental damage, and take action if it does.
Kaabi said that the penalty could be as high as 5% of the total revenue of the company worldwide. He added that it would cause far-reaching problems and hurt companies operating in the EU as well as those within the bloc.
"So, to me, the message I'm sending to Europe and the EU Commission is: Are you saying that I don’t want your LNG in the EU?" It's because I am not going supply LNG to EU to meet their energy needs and then have my entire worldwide revenue go to EU. There's definitely something wrong," he said.
He said that the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), the estimated $510 billion sovereign funds, and other institutional investor would also consider investing somewhere else to avoid penalties.
He said that the EU's "economies do not perform well, and therefore they need to be supported." Reporting by Andrew Mills & Yousef Sabah. Yousef SABA and Menna A. Alaa El din wrote the article. Mark Potter (Editing)
(source: Reuters)
