Qatar energy supplies seen highly important for the world

Global head of commodity strategy at RBC Capital Markets and member of board of directors of the Atlantic Council Helima Croft hailed the State of Qatar's energy supplies, promoting energy security at a global level.
Speaking exclusively to Qatar News Agency (QNA), Croft said Qatar has played a key role in securing world energy supplies in the early days of the war in Ukraine, which kept "the lights on in Europe".
"If we've learned anything in this year and the past 12 months, it’s the need for stable and reliable supplies of energy, and very much Qatar was seen as answering the call, and even before the war began," Croft said.
Qatar has a very important strategic partnership with the US, Croft said, highlighting both sides' long-term relationship that appear at times of crises.
Qatar is one of the countries that responded immediately, in terms of additional flows of energy shipments, that were not required in Asia, where the weather is warm, and moved to Europe, she added.
She said: "Qatar was declared a major non-Nato ally at the United States...One of the key themes in every meeting we've been in is the importance of the relationship with the United States.
"The United States remains a front and centre relationship for this country, and I think that is a unique statement made in this region.
"I think also beyond energy security, what we've seen in this war," she said is the role of Qatar in evacuating thousands of people from Afghan capital, Kabul. "Qatar played a role in helping to evacuate in that very precarious situation. So again I think about, we think about answering calls. That was another sort of key moment recently in the relationship."
Regarding her expectations for oil prices in 2023, Croft said the world is expected to face huge challenges of "recession and concerns about global growth", pointing out that the past year witnessed a "tremendous volatility in the oil market".
Croft said: "We had a war involving not just one of the world's largest oil and gas producers, but essentially we call it a commodity superstore.
“And so we already had a situation going into the war in Ukraine where we had the, the pandemic, post-pandemic reopening with a lack of investment in the energy sector.
Croft said fears about recession and global growth have really started to spook market participants. "We had the largest release from the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) over 200,000,000 barrels from the SPR to try to put a lid on energy prices," she added.
She added that if China managed to navigate the reopening of the country, that could be a really significant catalyst for oil prices.
Croft said that world energy market basically depends on demands and supplies.
In this regard, she said: "We look at Opec spare capacity, it resides only in a small number of producers and you have still US investors demanding capital discipline of US shale companies and so if demand holds up and we don't have again.”
Croft highlighted the sanctions on the Russian central bank and the possibility of doing business with the Russian energy sector. "We were in meetings where people from the administration talked to investors and said no, you can, you can do business with Russia, we've exempted oil. And then you think about the European embargo that just happened on December 5," she said.
Croft took note of allowing Russian oil to remain in the market with a price cap, and the possibility of changing calculations in the West about willingness to support Ukraine.
Croft added that energy transition has come at the top of the agenda, particularly for European policymakers, highlighting the Biden administration's approaches to tackle climate change.
"I think natural gas as a key transition fuel and a key energy security molecule has been settled at this point in terms of the fact that you have Germany rushing to complete LNG infrastructure in record time," she said.
"I think governments now think about diversifying energy supply, how that's important for energy security," she said, adding that the US encourages natural gas and LNG exports.