Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, the minister of state for energy affairs, the president and CEO of QatarEnergy, criticised strongly the EU’s green rules, mentioning that he is not intending to supply the EU with LNG and then be penalized with 5% of their total revenue worldwide.
For companies that will have to comply, he said that they will need to put “an army of people” to do all this diligence and as a consequence of this they will need to raise the prices to their customers.
“We are also asked to be responsible for tier emissions 1, 2, and 3 and be liable for a penalty of up to 5% of our total generated revenue worldwide. This makes absolutely no sense.
“So, my message to Europe and to the EU Commission is: Are you telling us that you don’t want our LNG into the EU? Because I’m not going to supply the EU with LNG to support their energy requirements and then be penalized with our total revenue worldwide,” minister Al-Kaabi said.
In remarks during a “Newsmaker Interview” as part of the Doha Forum 2024, held in Doha, Al-Kaabi criticized the directive as “making absolutely no sense.”
Furthermore, he said that Qatar stands in total support of the concept of the European Union’s (EU) Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CS3D), and of the desire to protect and uphold human rights, labor rights, and reducing environmental impact.
“However,” he added, “the issue is how you go about it.”
“This directive affects any company that deals in Europe and makes more than €450 million generated in or from Europe. So, companies like QatarEnergy, Shell, or ExxonMobil and even car companies like Toyota or GM, will have to say they will abide by the Paris Accords. So, the company will have to commit to Net Zero,” he explained.
“For us as QatarEnergy, and with all the expansions we are undertaking, I can assure you we cannot meet Net Zero as a company.”
“So, I think what the EU is doing is really surprising, and I think it will harm them. And for companies that will have to comply, will need to put an army of people to do all this diligence. If there is more cost on the company to do this diligence, who ends up paying for it? The customer. This will harm European companies first,” he concluded.
Minister Al-Kaabi highlighted QatarEnergy’s LNG expansion projects that will double its production capacity to 142 million tons per annum, add to that 18 million tons from its project in Golden Pass project in Texas, in the USA.
