Qatar’s fortunes boom with gas

With oil prices settled above $50 a barrel and increasing concern over shrinking reserves, many countries in Asia and the West are looking to
alternative sources to meet a growing energy demand.

One solution many of them are buying into is liquefied natural gas – or LNG. Lucy Williamson went to the Gulf state of Qatar as part of the BBC’s Fuelling the Future week to look at why it’s suddenly proving so popular.

Twenty years ago, you wouldn’t have noticed anything special about Ras Laffan. Then, it was more or less just a patch of desert 80km (50 miles) north of the Qatari capital. Now it’s home to what will become the world’s largest liquefied natural gas plant, supplying a quarter of the world’s future LNG.

Construction work has already begun on a series of new production lines at Ras Laffan to supply consumers across Europe and North America.

BBC