Qatar Poised To Become Top Overseas Buyer Of American Gas As Iran War Chokes Its Own Exports

Qatar is poised to become the top buyer of American liquefied natural gas within a decade as the Iran war chokes its own exports.

State-owned QatarEnergy is expected to control 23.7 million tons a year of U.S. LNG by 2033, more than any other buyer, according to Wood Mackenzie, a research firm, the Financial Times reported Wednesday.

That total includes two long-term deals QatarEnergy secured in late October and its 70 percent stake in the Golden Pass LNG export plant in Texas, the FT reported. None of the gas will go to Qatar itself, and the company will resell it to other countries instead.

QatarEnergy will probably strike two or three more U.S. supply agreements, Jason Feer, global head of business intelligence at the energy and shipping broker Poten & Partners, told the FT.

QatarEnergy agreed Oct. 22 to buy as much as four million tons of Cheniere Energy’s LNG a year through 2054, both companies said. A week later, it signed for as much as three million tons a year over 20 years from Woodside Energy’s Louisiana LNG project, Woodside announced.

“These additional volumes make QatarEnergy the largest buyer of LNG from the U.S.,” QatarEnergy CEO Saad Sherida al-Kaabi said in an Oct. 29 statement. Al-Kaabi also serves as Qatar’s minister of state for energy affairs.

When asked whether the Department of Energy should consider who is buying when approving new export capacity, Paul Cicio, president and CEO of the Industrial Energy Consumers of America, a group of manufacturers that rely on natural gas, pointed the Daily Caller News Foundation to the legal test for gas exports.

“The Natural Gas Act that governs LNG export approvals requires that the exports must ‘not be inconsistent with the public interest,'” Cicio said in a statement to the DCNF.

The law requires regulators to approve an export application unless they find the exports “will not be consistent with the public interest.”