Qatar is threatening to stop gas supplies to the European Union. The threat comes in response to the European duty of care law on forced labor and environmental damage. This is evident from a letter from Qatar to the Belgian government, which was seen by Reuters news agency.

Qatar is the world’s third-largest exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG), after the United States and Australia. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the Gulf state has supplied 12-14% of all LNG to Europe.

Strategic importance of Zeebrugge

In the letter dated May 21, Qatari Energy Minister Saad Al-Kaabi criticizes the so-called CSDDD directive. This directive – CSDDD stands for Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive – obliges larger companies in the EU to address human rights and environmental issues in their supply chains.

“If the CSDDD is not further amended, QatarEnergy and the State of Qatar will be forced to seriously consider moving our products and LNG to other markets outside the EU.”

According to a spokesperson for the European Commission, it already received a similar letter on May 13. Countries are still negotiating possible changes to the CSDDD.

It is not surprising that the Belgian government also received a separate letter from Qatar regarding this issue: the Zeebrugge LNG terminal plays a strategically important role in European LNG imports, especially as a gateway to Central Europe. In 2023, Qatar’s share of the LNG volumes received by Zeebrugge was approximately 29%.

Qatar Terminal Limited, a subsidiary of Qatar Petroleum, has secured the entire regasification capacity of the LNG terminal in Zeebrugge until 2044, and has already used more than 50% of it to supply Qatari LNG to Belgium and Europe under long-term agreements. The terminal has an annual capacity of approximately 9 billion cubic meters of natural gas.

Troublesome Paris Climate Agreement

Brussels has already amended the CSDDD to relax the requirements somewhat, but according to Qatar, these changes do not go far enough. Al-Kaabi expressed particular concern about the requirement that companies must have a climate plan in line with the Paris Climate Agreement. The letter states that neither QatarEnergy nor the State of Qatar has plans to reduce their CO2 emissions to zero soon.

Qatar is one of the countries with the highest CO2 emissions per capita in the world, at around 35-45 tons of CO2 per person per year, while its total net emissions are relatively small in a global context (approximately 0,27% of global emissions), given its small population (2,6 million inhabitants) and size.

However, almost half of the country’s total greenhouse gas emissions stem from CO2 emissions associated with LNG production.

Increasing LNG production

Qatar has the world’s third-largest reserves of natural gas, behind Russia and Iran. Last year, it produced approximately 77,23 million tons of LNG, thanks to 14 LNG plants at Ras Laffan, making the company the largest LNG producer in the world.

The goal is to increase the country’s annual LNG production capacity to 126 million tons per year by 2027. In addition to expanding LNG production, Qatar is also focusing on environmental initiatives, particularly in carbon capture and storage (CCS), a technique that captures CO2 at its source and stores it underground, typically in depleted gas fields or deep geological formations. By 2030, it aims to reduce the carbon intensity of LNG production by 25-35%

Many environmental movements often see the expensive CCS process as an extension of the fossil fuel era, because oil and gas companies use it to ‘offset’ their CO2 emissions without fundamentally changing their activities.