In an interview with the Oct. 18 Financial Times, Qatar’s Energy Minister Saad al-Kaabi tried to explain some basic facts of economic life to Europeans. If there is “zero Russian gas” flowing into the EU, as Brussels intends, “I think the problem is going to be huge and for a very long time.” There are no viable alternatives to the gas under current policies. “You just don’t have enough volume to bring [in] to replace that gas for the long term, unless you’re saying ‘I’m going to be building huge nuclear [plants], I’m going to allow coal, I’m going to burn fuel oils,’” the minister explained.
He described that things will be “much worse next year,” unless Russian gas is imported. “This coming winter, because of the storage capacity being full, it’s fine. It’s really replenishing the reserves, or the storage, for next year that’s going to be the issue.” He urged Europeans to “get off the discussion that gas is not needed for a long time, because everybody who’s going to invest in the gas sector, they’re looking at 25-, 30-, 40-year horizons to invest and to get reasonable returns on the investments.”
