Saturation in the British gas market until 2014 will force top LNG exporter Qatar to look for other markets as it brings a major plant on line later this year, a top Qatargas executive said on Thursday.
Qatargas, one of two majority-state owned producers in the Gulf Arab state, is considering re-selling gas earmarked for Britain in Asia, Europe or the United States, Faisal al-Suwaidi told Reuters in an interview.
Qatargas had a signed a deal to supply Britain with production from trains 4 and 5, each of which have a production capacity of 7.8 million tonnes per year.
"In case the UK can't take all this quantity (of train 4), most likely we will have to divert it," Suwaidi said. "We feel that the UK market will be oversupplied between now and 2014.This will get worse when we start train 5, which will happen before the end of the year."
The combined capacity of trains 4 and 5 could meet up to 20 percent of Britain's gas needs.
Qatar, the world's top liquefied natural gas exporter, plans to double its LNG output this year to 62 million tonnes per year in 2009 by bringing on line the world's biggest LNG trains, and hit a target of 77 million tonnes per year in 2010.
.jpg)
