Interesting Forecast about fossil fuels including GAS25 May 2023 20:33
QATARS ENERGY MINISTER FROM 23rd MAY :-The Qatari official warned that energy transition policies by governments around the world would deter investment in fossil fuels and result in natural gas shortages in the looming decade.
The “worst is yet to come” for Europe as it continues to grapple with oil and gas shortages, Qatar’s energy minister warned at the Qatar Economic Forum in Lusail on Tuesday.
“The only thing that saved humanity and Europe this year was a warm winter and the slowdown in the economy worldwide,” said Saad Sherida Al Kaabi. “If the economy comes back in 2024, the worst is yet to come.”
Europe avoided significant issues over the past winter season in large due to milder-than-expected temperatures, which would have exacerbated an existent boiling energy supply crisis triggered partially by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“If they don’t realise that and have a proper plan and sit down with producers and oil and gas companies are not demonised, reality will kick in and we’ll have a sensible solution,” Al Kaabi said.
Al Kaabi said in May last year that Western countries including the United Kingdom are facing the consequences for their to drive eliminate carbon emissions in a bid to combat climate change by “demonising oil and gas companies.”
Al Kaabi noted, in an interview with Sky News, that his country is willing to help the UK with its cost of living crisis, however, Western powers must take responsibility.
Years of pushing for an urgent end to fossil fuel production and calling gas producers the “bad guys” had contributed to the current crisis, he argued.
Meanwhile, Al Kaabi noted that the recent surge in oil and energy prices in Europe and beyond is not entirely as a result of the Russian and Ukrainian crisis but rather could be traced back many years before the event.
“It’s definitely a deeper issue,” he said while addressing the steady decrease of investments in gas production over the past few years as Europe pushed a move towards achieving net-zero through renewable sources.
“There was a build up of countries pushing for the [energy] transition in a hard way. [They pushed for] net-zero, moving to renewables, doing away with fossil fuels and demonising the oil and gas companies, [calling them] the bad guys. And [as a result] you don’t have enough investment in the oil and gas sector,” Al Kaabi said, according to Sky News.