Al-Kuwari speaks at the CWC 16th World LNG Summit in Rome.

Despite some recent turbulence, the global business environment for liquefied natural gas (LNG) remained strong, and a continuous growth in demand is expected for years to come, RasGas chief marketing & shipping officer Khalid Sultan R al-Kuwari said at the CWC 16th World LNG Summit in Rome.    
Presenting his ‘Overview of the LNG Industry in the year past, the present and the future’ as a member of the global strategy panel at the summit, al-Kuwari said that a growth rate of approximately 5% a year from 2015 to 2025 was anticipated, and during this period LNG demand was expected to outpace the overall growth in natural gas demand.    
He acknowledged that “As Asia’s LNG supply has increased and demand has eased, the traditional Asia  premium has been challenged. This, combined with the recent drop in crude prices and the resurgence of  nuclear and coal for power generation, has changed the familiar landscape for LNG in Asia, and brought  into question economics for some new and some planned LNG projects”. However, new customers and new markets for LNG are also increasing at an ever faster pace.
“LNG is still a business requiring significant capital investments in production, liquefaction, and  transportation.  As such, LNG requires reliable participants, like RasGas with a long term vision and the  resilience to overcome short term uncertainty. I am still very optimistic that RasGas and the gas industry as a whole will be able to proactively embrace change and to continue to evolve the business to meet the growing needs of our customers and to meet the objectives of our sponsors and shareholders,” said al-Kuwari.
The annual CWC World LNG Summit brought together industry’s leading players to address the key issues facing the global energy sector.