From 2026, Qatari LNG is to be delivered to Germany.
(Photo: imago images/VCG)
Doha, Berlin According to Energy Minister Saad Sharida al-Kaabie, Qatar has concluded an agreement on liquid gas deliveries to Germany. The gas is to be sold by the state-owned company Qatar Energy to the US company Conoco Phillips, which will deliver it to the German LNG terminal Brunsbüttel, the minister said on Tuesday in the Qatari capital Doha.
Delivery is scheduled to begin in 2026 and run for up to 15 years. Up to 2 million tons are to be delivered annually. They did not want to comment on the price. Further talks about LNG deliveries were held with German companies.
At the industry conference in Berlin, Economics Minister Robert Habeck made it clear: “The political talks in Qatar were only general talks. After that, the companies remained in negotiations, which conclude their contracts themselves”.
It is not the task of the state to buy gas and infrastructure. “We have contracts with RWE and Uniper for the LNG terminal in Brunsbüttel. These companies buy on the world market, not us,” said the Green politician. The companies take advantage of various offers, including Qatar, “but it’s not the only provider on the market,” says Habeck.
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The deal comes just days after Qatar and China announced a massive supply deal spanning 27 years.
Gas deal with Qatar: Habeck wants to reduce gas consumption soon
For Germany, the 15-year deal with Qatar is the first longer-term supply contract for liquefied natural gas. However, with a volume of 2.7 billion cubic meters per year, the delivery volume is quite small. For comparison: in 2021 Germany consumed almost 90.5 billion cubic meters of natural gas. By the time war broke out between Russia and Ukraine, around 55 billion cubic meters had been sent annually from Russia to Germany through the Nord Stream 1 Baltic Sea pipeline.
The federal government had actually set itself the goal of only concluding short-term gas supply contracts. Habeck made it clear on Tuesday that the companies acted independently on the world market. “But it is clear that gas consumption will have to go down in the foreseeable future,” said the minister. After all, Germany has set itself the goal of being climate-neutral by 2045.
With agency material.
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