With the energy crisis, the Gulf countries are back in the spotlight

On Sunday, September 25, the United Arab Emirates and Germany sealed an agreement which provides for the supply of liquefied gas and diesel for 2022 and 2023. The day before, Qatar announced the signing of a major contract worth one and a half billion euros with the French TotalEnergies to develop the largest natural gas field in the world. Two major announcements in the current context, both industrially and geopolitically.

TotalEnergies had already signed an agreement in June worth more than two billion euros with Qatar to develop the “North Field East” project, the largest natural gas field in the world, which Qatar shares with Iran. The French multinational will invest an additional one and a half billion euros in the continuation of the project and will play a major strategic role in its development.

The “North Field East” production infrastructure represents approximately 10% of the world’s known natural gas reserves. You should know that Qatar is one of the main producers of LNG (liquefied natural gas) in the world. Gas is one of the cheapest to produce there.

For its part, Germany chooses the United Arab Emirates. Everyone has their own camp, but always in the same region: the precious Persian Gulf. Since Saturday, September 24, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has been touring the region to forge energy partnerships. The agreement signed between Berlin and Abu Dhabi provides for the export of a cargo of LNG to Germany by the end of 2022 and a delivery of diesel up to 250,000 tonnes per month. In the midst of a crisis with the war in Ukraine, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, Gulf countries in general, all are seeking to increase their production to supply Western countries, Europe in the first place, who want to diversify their resources and no longer depend on a main energy supplier, Russia in this case.