Monday 7th February 2005
Ritz-Carlton Doha

Excellencies,
Ladies & Gentlemen,

It is a privilege for me today to extend a warm welcome to all participants in this GCC-EU Seminar on Natural Gas Technology and its applications to the processing, transport, storage and distribution of natural gas. The Seminar will also address subjects related to advanced technologies for power generation and desalination through the utilization of natural gas.

I wish to thank here in particular the Secretariat General of the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf and the Directorate General for Energy and Transport of the European Commission for their efforts and support in organizing this Seminar and bringing together gas industry operators and experts in the GCC member states and gas technology providers and developers in the EU.

The subjects that will be discussed in your Seminar, are indeed central to the dramatic changes that are taking place today in the energy world and in particular the emergence of natural gas as the fuel of choice to fill the gap in the energy supply-demand balance in the decades to come.

To be able to live up to its expectations as the most efficient and environmentally friendly fossil fuel and to continue its growth, natural gas must rely on technology and innovation to reduce the cost of making it available to the world's markets and to resolve the technical challenges that still constitute a hurdle in its competition with oil and coal in certain areas of use.

The GCC Countries are blessed with huge natural gas reserves. Qatar's North Field alone has proven reserves exceeding 900 tcf. On the other hand the European Union is emerging as one of the largest markets for natural gas.

By virtue of the size of the European gas market and the huge industrial and technological base of the EU and with the GCC huge gas reserves that need to be developed and maintained, there is a natural match that can be effectively exploited and turned into a beneficial cooperative effort to meet our mutual and growing needs.

The traditional relations in the oil sector between the GCC Countries and the EU have been extended to natural gas with Qatar and Oman heavily involved in LNG export projects to EU Countries. Qatar in particular has developed a mega project in the UK (Qatargas II Project with up to 15.8 MTA exports for 25 years starting in 2008). RasGas II has also acquired large terminal capacity in Belgium (3.4 MTA in the Zeebrugge LNG terminal) in addition to developing an offshore LNG terminal on the Italian Adriatic coast to receive up to 6MTA of LNG for the Italian gas market. In Spain, Qatar and Oman have committed to long term LNG sales to Spanish buyers including Gas Natural, ENDESA and Union Fenosa.

By 2010, the EU is expected to receive a total of 28MTA of LNG from Qatar alone making it the main LNG supply source. A large number of European companies including Consultants, EPC contractors, license providers, equipment manufacturers and others are actively participating in these projects and contributing to the expansion of the GCC-EU trade.

From a Qatari perspective, having huge reserves alone is no guarantee for success when developing costly, technically complex and commercially challenging natural gas ventures. There are a number of other factors and policies that have contributed together in making Qatar a success story in the natural gas world in such a relatively short period of time and I wish to state that our commitment to innovation and the adoption of World Class technology is one of these factors.

Looking back through the relatively short history of our gas Industry, Qatar was the first producer to build 3.3 MTA trains, the first to build 4.7 MTA trains and we are now the first to build 7.8 MTA trains. These innovations will dramatically reduce the unit cost of producing LNG. To further reduce costs we are developing with the leading shipbuilders of the World new generation of large LNG tankers. Other technical innovations and synergies with existing production trains and facilities are also being introduced and applied whenever possible with the objective of lowering costs, improving reliability and enhancing the competitiveness of Qatar LNG.

In the Gas to Liquid technology we have adopted a similar approach and embraced a number of GTL projects based on various processes developed by the leading technology providers in the world. I would like to mention here the value we place on partnerships. The Partnerships we enjoy in the upstream part of our business when we decide to invest in a venture and develop a particular project, we bring in the best partners.

In this respect we are proud to be associated with some of the world's largest Oil Companies among them a number of companies from the EU. We greatly value the resources and capabilities they bring to Qatar. Such partnerships based on complete business and strategic alignments have allowed us to embrace the best technology available.

In the power generation and water desalination sectors, the GCC countries require the building of huge capacity to sustain their development efforts and cater for the growing needs of their populations in the years to come. Natural gas has been again a fuel of choice in power generation and this is universally recognized as the driving force behind growth in gas demand worldwide.

We must however remember that despite its obvious advantages in power generation, the use of natural gas must be continuously supported by further research and innovation to improve efficiency, enhance operations and maintainability and reduce costs. We must keep in mind that the coal people have not given up the fight against gas in the power generation sector and they are as smart as we are and continue relentlessly to work on making coal cleaner and more efficient.

I would like to mention here one particular area where I believe more research and focus is needed and this concerns the gas interchangeability and quality problem that affects the ability to burn natural gas from certain sources in the combustion systems including turbines and domestic appliances.

This is a major hurdle for gas importers in certain markets within the EU and elsewhere and I believe that turbine manufacturers and operators should focus on this problem to find an acceptable cost effective technical solution.

To allow the benefits of exploiting their natural resources to reach all components of the society, the GCC Countries have made it a priority to encourage education and facilitate the introduction of the latest technology. Qatar is committed to furthering education standards and has made significant achievement and progress in bringing quality education to the Country. World Class technical universities and educational institutions have already signed partnerships with the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development and have opened branch campuses at Education City.

Considering the EU high technical education standards in the natural gas processing, transportation, power generation, water desalination and other related fields I wish to encourage EU specialized institutions to participate in this effort and to explore ways of establishing training institutions that would promote European technology and know how.

We in Qatar consider quality education and training as one of the foundations for future development and prosperity as it leads directly to achieve another important goal - the Qatarization of our ventures and projects workforce.

Last but not least, I would like to mention Safety and the Environment. Whilst we are proud of the safety records enjoyed by the natural gas industry and will continue to work hard to ensure we remain a safe industry, we need to do more for the Environment as we grow and expand.

Natural gas is itself one of the most environmentally friendly sources of energy but we still have to manage our processes so that we comfort the public and all those who genuinely still feel uncomfortable about the way the industry handles certain issues including sulfur recovery and disposal.

We all know that Technology can do wonders and I encourage the EU participants to look into these areas and to propose practical and cost effective solutions to this problem.

I hope my brief opening remarks will set the tone for a fruitful and successful seminar that will be beneficial to all participants and will contribute to more technological advancement in the natural gas industry and to reinforcing the GCC-EU cooperation in this area.

Thank you for your attention.

-Ends-

© Press Release 2005