The National: Qatar unfazed by shale gas growth

Qatar has refuted concerns that the North American shale gas revolution will flood the world markets with liquefied natural gas (LNG) and bring down prices.

"The US has need for energy themselves," said Hamad Rashid Al Mohannadi, the managing director of RasGas, one of the state-controlled gas producers in Qatar, at a conference in Malaysia. "I don't see the US exporting large volumes of LNG"

New techniques to extract natural gas from shale rock formations have dramatically increased the supply in the US and Canada, and brought down prices to only $1.90 per million British thermal units (mBtu) on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the lowest in more than 10 years.

The oversupply in North America has opened up the arbitrage with other markets, where LNG sells for as much as $16 per mBtu. Last month, the US company Cheniere gained approval to build the country's first export terminal and a total of 15 proposals for such projects have been submitted in the US and Canada.