Qatar has not had difficulty securing long-term liquefied natural gas (LNG) contracts and will sign more this year, QatarEnergy CEO and state minister for energy Saad al-Kaabi said at an economic forum on Wednesday.

"We've actually secured 25 million tons of long-term LNG sales (in the last 12 months) and I can tell you also on this podium that we're signing more this year," he said.

State-owned QatarEnergy has been signing supply deals with European and Asian partners for gas that is expected to come onstream from its massive North Field expansion, part of the world's largest natural gas field which Qatar shares with Iran, which calls it South Pars.

Qatar, one of the world's largest LNG exporters, announced an

additional expansion of its LNG production in February that will add 16 million metric tons per year to its original plans, bringing total capacity from 77 million tons per year to 142 million.

Kaabi said he sees a big future demand for LNG and Qatar would continue to assess its gas reservoirs for possible future growth.

"We are very bullish on demand going forward," Kaabi said.

Kaabi also re-iterated that should technical evaluations show Qatar could further expand production it would.

"If there is more we probably will do more," he said.

(Reporting by Andrew Mills; Writing by Nadine Awadalla; Editing by Maha El Dahan and Christian Schmollinger)