Qatar Economic Outlook Issue Number 13

Figure 1-3: LNG export by major producer 
country (MMT /month) (MMB/D) 
34 
27 
34 
32 
-
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
01 03 05 07 09 11 01 03 05 07 09 11 01 03 05 07
2019
2020
2021
Qatar LNG
US LNG
Australia
Russia
Others
Total by country
Source: Eikon REFINITIV
Figure 1-2: Forecasts of liquid fuel 
consumption by major economies (MMB/D)
 
 
92.4 
101.1 
86
88
90
92
94
96
98
100
102
104
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
55
Ja
n
Mar
May
Ju
l
Se
p
N
ov
Ja
n
Mar
May
Ju
l
Se
p
N
ov
2021
2022
M
illi
on
b
ar
re
l/d
ay
M
illi
on
b
ar
re
l/d
ay
China
Japan
Europe
USA
World (rest) R-axis
Global consumption (R-axis)
Source: EIA, and prepared by PSA (December 2021)

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Qatar Economic Outlook 2021 - 2023 
24 
Technological Development of Gas 
as Clean Energy 
Natural gas is the cleanest burning fossil fuel 
due to its relatively low carbon emissions, 
and assuming very little in the way of fugitive 
emissions. Studies by the US Environmental 
Protection Agency (US EPA) found that 
energy production using LNG generates 45% 
to 55% of the carbon dioxide emissions of 
burning low-quality lignite coal.
Since the gas industry has gone through 
several stages, as described in Box (1-4), a 
number of studies were conducted to 
estimate the quantity of carbon emission
from LNG process in each stage, and it has 
been determined that CO2 emissions remain 
lower than coal emissions by 20% to 53%. 
This is why important LNG buyers consider 
LNG to be the most appropriate transition 
fuel
10
.
However, monitoring of fugitive methane 
emissions must be taken into account, as 
methane is much more powerful a 
greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide; 
Methane is warming the planet by about 80 
times more than carbon dioxide, according to 
the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel 
on Climate Change
11
. 
The economic importance of natural gas 
industry stems from the fact that it is not only 
used to generate electric power but also is 
one of the most important intermediate 
materials for many manufacturing industries 
such as: plastics, fertilizers, and household 
uses in kitchen stoves and for space heating. 
Thanks to the invention of the gas-to-liquid 
(GTL) technology used during the past two 
10
https://www.qatarenergy.qa/en/MediaCenter/Pages/newsdetails.asp
x?ItemId=3683
11
https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/methane-emissions-
are-driving-climate-change-heres-how-reduce-them
decades, which reduced gas mass by 1/600 
compared to its original gaseous state, this 
has facilitated storing and the transportation 
of the gas safely and in large quantities, until 
it has today become a vital global commodity 
traded across the oceans to various parts of 
the world. The volume of international trade 
in LNG has increased from 238 million tons 
in 2012 to 356 tons in 2020, demonstrating a 
growth rate of 50%, as shown in Figure (1-4). 
It is worth noting that methane emissions are 
not limited to what leaks from the natural gas 
process, which, for example, constitute 30% 
of the total emissions in the United States
12
of America, as the rest comes from 
agricultural activities such as raising livestock 
at 27%, and land uses as waste centers at 
17%, or natural fertilizer processes (animal 
manure) at 9%, coal uses at 7%, and others 
at 9%. Methane emissions can be reduced by 
changing manure preparation including 
capturing it, or modifying animal feeding by 
12
https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/overview-greenhouse-
gases#methane