Gas-producing countries must make clear that they oppose trade barriers, Qatar’s Energy Minister Saad al-Kaabi said on Thursday, reiterating his opposition to a European Union sustainability law.
Qatar, one of the world’s top liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporters, has argued that the EU’s corporate sustainability due diligence directive (CSDDD), adopted in 2024, poses a significant risk to state-owned QatarEnergy.
The EU rule requires larger companies operating in the bloc to find and fix human rights and environmental issues in their supply chains or face financial penalties, including fines of 5% of global revenue.
On Wednesday, the European Parliament agreed to consider further changes to the sustainability rules, as Qatar and the U.S., the world’s top gas producer, heaped pressure on Brussels to scale back the law.
“We must be clear in our opposition to trade barriers and discriminatory measures that disadvantage energy products, especially natural gas,” Al-Kaabi said at a ministerial meeting of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum in Doha.
Al-Kaabi told Reuters last week that Qatar will not be able to do business in the EU, including supplying LNG, if further changes are not made to the bloc’s corporate sustainability rules.
At a news conference later on Thursday, he reiterated Qatar’s stance on the EU law.
“There is no way that we can supply any country” that would impose a fine of 5% on global turnover, he told reporters.
Stopping supplies to Europe “is something we absolutely do not want to do and this is why we have been warning about this. I was one of the first people to be vocal about it,” he added.
Al-Kaabi earlier on Thursday also said that the outlook for natural gas and particularly LNG is positive, “despite geopolitical tensions and faltering climate policies”.
The positive outlook is driven by economic growth in Asia and booming power demand from data centres and artificial intelligence, he said.
(Reporting by Sarah El Safty; Writing by Yousef Saba and Ahmed Elimam; Editing by Susan Fenton and Marguerita Choy)