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| Volume XIV, Fall 2007, Number 3 |
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EXCERPT
Qatar’s Natural Gas: The Foreign-Policy Driver
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| Justin Dargin |
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Mr. Dargin is the author of “Emerging State Centralism in the Russian
Energy Sector: Precedents from the Gulf?,” featured in the forthcoming
Russian and CIS Relations with the Gulf Region (2008). He is
currently researching Middle Eastern Gas Issues at the Oxford
Institute for Energy Studies. This article reflects his own research and
opinions. You may reach him for comments at darginju@msu.edu.
Qatar finds itself in a very
peculiar position, nestled
sometimes uncomfortably
between oil powerhouse
Saudi Arabia to the south and a
bellicose Iran and chaotic Iraq across the
Persian/Arabian Gulf. For most of its
existence as an independent nation, Qatar
has striven to carve out an independent
foreign policy. In order to understand
Qatar’s overall gas policy, it is important to
view it through the prism of the country’s
ambitious foreign policy initiatives.
Qatar’s exploitation of its immense
natural-gas reserves, estimated to be the
third largest in the world (after Russia and
Iran), at 910.5 trillion cubic feet, is key to
its 1980s quest to become the “Saudi
Arabia” of liquified natural gas (LNG) and
natural-gas sales. Recent natural-gas
availability reports, as illustrated by Figure
One, show that Qatar has compiled
absolutely compelling numbers.
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