Natural gas in Qatar

European markets including Belgium, the United Kingdom and Spain were also significant buyers of Qatari LNG, accounting for an additional 33%.

In 2016, QatarEnergy has entered into an agreement with Dolphin Energy to increase exports by 1 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day.

[9] In line with Qatar's plans to significantly expand natural-gas production during the next five years, the country in 2018 pledged investments worth $11.6 billion in Germany, including for the construction of a LNG terminal.

Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani announced that the nation's LNG production capacity is set to rise to 126 million tones a year by 2027.

[12] In December 2024, threatened to halt gas supplies to the European Union if it was found to be in breach of the bloc's Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive.

[13] The bulk of Qatar's expected future increases in natural-gas production will come from projects related to the massive North Field.

[14] In November 2005, ExxonMobil started production at the Al Khaleej block in the North Field at a rate of 750 million cubic feet per day (21×10^6 m3/d).

Even though Qatar had expropriated the North Field in the late 1970s, pundits viewed it as "expropriation-lite," since Royal Dutch Shell continued to act as adviser and expert consultant.

The emirate was actually anxious to grant equity stakes to international oil companies in any venture because QatarEnergy lacked the financial and technical expertise to efficiently develop the fields.

Shell, previously one of Qatar's major partners, abandoned all ongoing discussions, ostensibly lured by the promise of more-profitable gas ventures in Australia.

Gas-to-liquids (GTL) technology uses a refining process to turn natural gas into liquid fuels, such as low sulfur diesel and naphtha, among other products.

Natural gas can also be used as main raw material in the production of high protein feed for cattle, fish, or poultry with tiny water and land foot print by cultivating Methylococcus capsulatus bacteria culture.

The gas project, in a 6000 km2 field off Qatar's northeast coast, is supervised by Bechtel based in the United States and by Technip in France.

Natural gas from other fields provides fuel for power generation and raw materials for fertilizers, petrochemicals, and steel plants.

With the expected depletion of oil reserves by about 2023, planners hope natural gas from the North Field will provide a significant underpinning for the country's economic development.

Qatargas was established in 1984 as a joint venture with QatarEnergy and foreign partners to market and export LNG from the North Field.

The production is expected to meet the domestic demand of an estimated 17 million cubic metres (600×10^6 cu ft) per day.