Qatar restarts petchems drive

Doha’s gas is ready to go downstream again

Qatar is a natural home for petrochemicals production, given its huge reserves of low-cost gas and proximity to major Asian markets. But the country also lacks some of the motivations pushing its oil-rich regional counterparts along the downstream route—with a tiny population limiting the job-creation imperative and a brighter long-term demand outlook for gas compared with the oil on which its neighbours rely. Doha’s development of the petchems sector has thus moved in fits and starts, with the last nascent upswing in the mid-2010s abruptly stifled by an oil price collapse. But, rather overlooked in the headlines about the expansion of LNG export capacity in the North Field East (NFE) expans