Qatar – EU: Gas Tug-of-War

The rapid fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria has revived the idea of building a 2600-kilometer-long pipeline. From Qatar, it must pass through Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Turkey, and continue to Europe. Turkey’s interest in the project was announced by Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar (pictured) in December 2024.

However, already in January 2025, the official representative of the Foreign Ministry of Qatar, Majid bin Mohammed Al-Ansari, dispelled all illusions regarding the prospects of this gas pipeline, stating that talks about it have no real grounds. What could explain such a harsh negative reaction by Qatar to Turkey’s proposal?

This is clearly not about relations with Turkey, which is one of Qatar’s closest regional allies and partners. Qatar has repeatedly stated its readiness to increase natural gas supplies to Turkey. Qatar also supports the new government in Syria and is going to invest in the development of the country’s energy sector.

Although building the pipeline to Europe would take at least five years, there is no doubt that such a pipeline would open up an additional channel for Qatar to monetize its vast natural gas reserves. Europeans would also benefit, as additional volumes of Qatari gas would allow them to reduce prices on the market. So, why doesn’t Qatar support the idea of building a pipeline?

A bit of history. The surge of interest in piped gas from Qatar appeared in connection with plans to build the Nabucco gas pipeline, which was to start at the border with Turkey, pass through Bulgaria, Romania, and Hungary to Austria. The design capacity of the pipeline was estimated at 32 billion cubic meters. Energy companies from Turkey, Austria, Romania, and Hungary participated. Construction was scheduled to begin in 2011 and be completed in 2014.

A wide variety of sources have been considered to fill the Nabucco with natural gas. These included Iranian, Azeri, Turkmen, Iraqi, Kazakh, Uzbek, Egyptian, and finally Qatari gas. Qatar’s resources came to mind when the most promising Iranian gas had to be abandoned because it fell under international sanctions over Iran’s nuclear program. Gas from Central Asia became unavailable due to the impossibility of constructing an underwater gas pipeline across the Caspian Sea because of the then uncertain status of that sea. Other potential project participants did not have sufficient gas reserves to fill the project.

Qatari gas was not suitable for Nabucco either, as the gas transit countries failed to reach an agreement among themselves. Finding itself without gas, the Nabucco pipeline project was canceled in 2013. Nabucco’s place was taken by the TAP pipeline with a capacity of 10 billion cubic meters per year and filled with Azerbaijani gas. It took a different route in Europe than Nabucco, namely through Bulgaria, Greece, Albania to Italy.

The phantom Nabucco project turned out to be the source of numerous geopolitical myths that gave Syria a special role in the project’s failure.

Myth number 1. The reason for Russia’s participation in the civil war on the side of Bashar al-Assad was its desire to prevent the construction of a gas pipeline from Qatar to Turkey.

Myth number 2. The involvement of a coalition of Western countries in this war was prompted by attempts to topple the Assad regime, which allegedly opposed the construction of this pipeline.

In reality, Assad was not the figure, over which the gas pipeline from Qatar to Turkey tripped. As Assad himself admitted in a 2015 interview, he had not received any offer from Qatar to participate in the project. It is safe to say that if Assad had received such a proposal, he would have supported it, as the scope of the project would have brought Syria out of its deep political and economic isolation.

It should not be forgotten that Russian armed forces appeared in Syria only in 2015. By that time, Nabucco had been defunct for a couple of years. The military assistance to Assad was explained not by opposition to the gas pipeline, but by Russia’s desire to stop the penetration of radical Islamists from ISIS into the CIS countries, as well as to create an outpost for its expansion into Africa. The Western coalition countries did not overthrow Assad to support a gas pipeline from Qatar through Syria, but acted as part of a globalist strategy to topple any regimes they deemed totalitarian.

Finally, the territory of Syria is not critical for a gas pipeline from Qatar to Turkey. The pipeline could also be laid through Iraqi territory, which even makes it shorter. Let me remind you that Turkish Prime Minister Turgut Ozal proposed to build two strings of the gas pipeline back in 1987: one through Syria and the other through Iraq. If only the parties were willing, but they weren’t.

If we don’t dwell on Assad, who has nothing to do with it, there were at least two real insurmountable obstacles to the construction of the pipeline. One of them, geopolitical, has a long history. It amounts to a showdown between powerful royal families in the Arabian Peninsula, the Al Sauds with the Al Thani. The former rules Saudi Arabia, the latter Qatar. The second obstacle in its final shape has been formed relatively recently and lies in the peculiarities of the EU energy policy.

Without delving into the roots of the inter-family conflict, I will only note that the confrontation between American and British interests in the Middle East is clearly visible behind it. Twice, in March 2014 and June 2017, Saudi Arabia, backed by the Arab League, severed diplomatic relations with Qatar. The first time for a few months, the second time for a few years, until January 2021. Qatar has been accused of destabilizing the region, funding groups linked to Iran and harboring leaders of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood.

After a rehearsal in 2014, the blockade of Qatar was taken up in earnest in 2017. Arab countries have declared a transportation blockade, including an air blockade, and banned Al Jazeera from broadcasting in their territories. For a country that is virtually totally dependent on imported goods, the closure of borders posed a serious security threat. Since 80% of Qatar’s food was supplied through Saudi Arabia, the country faced a real food crisis, and the local rial depreciated to a ten-year low. The author of this article was in Qatar during these years and remembers the empty, darkened international airport in Doha and the menu restrictions in hotel restaurants.

The political differences between Qatar and Saudi Arabia have partially softened after 2021, but have not disappeared. Due to these contradictions, the pipeline through Saudi Arabia actually creates a pain point for Qatar, and therefore the country has no desire to become critically dependent also on food. Saudi Arabia, in turn, is also not interested in unilaterally strengthening its ambitious neighbor. The article could have ended here, but there are other points without which the topic of the pipeline would not have been fully covered. They are the ones that make the EU a disadvantageous market not only for pipeline gas but also for liquefied gas from Qatar.

The pipeline would tie Qatar to the European gas market, which is a market with falling demand and uncertain prospects. And this fact limits the interest in supplying Europe with any Qatari gas, not only pipeline gas. At the end of last year, Qatar ranked only third in supplies to Europe after the USA and Russia. Qatar’s supply to the EU fell by a third, from 13.1 bcm in 2023 to 9.9 bcm in 2024. Some part of this decline is due to the Houthis, who by their actions lengthened the route of methane ships from Qatar to Europe by a week, forcing them to go around Africa instead of through the Suez Canal. But this is only one of the reasons, the effect of which presumably will cease once normal navigation in the Red Sea gets restored.

The main reason for the decrease in LNG supplies is the energy policy of the European Commission, which considers natural gas as a transitional fuel. The EU is an ideological opponent of long-term contracts for its supply and is trying to monetize the ESG agenda’s demands at the expense of oil and gas exporters.

Qatar has set an ambitious target to increase LNG production from the current 77 million tons to 152 million tons by 2030. However, QatarEnergy Corporation has so far only been able to contract about 60 million tons/year of LNG, which is 40% of its capacity after the expansion completion. The level of coverage by long-term contracts must be at least doubled in order to obtain bank financing. European buyers are the main “headache” for Qataris, as they have so far agreed to conclude contracts for volumes of 10 million tons/year.

The Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence (CSDD) Directive, adopted in July 2024, poses an equally serious challenge for Qatar in terms of supplying the European market. It will come into force after its integration into the legislation of individual EU countries in 2027. Qatar’s Finance Minister Ali bin Ahmed al-Kuwari said at the World Economic Forum in Davos on January 22 that his country could divert LNG supplies from the European Union to other markets if the EU does not revise the CSDD Directive. The directive, which involves levying fines on large companies for failing to meet criteria on carbon emissions and human rights, is a blatant example of “unfair competition,” according to al-Kuwari.

The CSDD Directive mandates the examination of a supplier in the EU for potential human rights abuses and negative environmental impacts throughout the value chain of its goods. A fine can be imposed on 5% of the global turnover of a company that supplies more than €450 million worth of goods to the EU, even if it is not the company itself but one of its suppliers or contractors that has committed human rights abuses or had a negative impact on the environment.

The CSDD directive was earlier criticized by Saad Al Kaabi, Minister of Energy and head of QatarEnergy. “Firstly, in order not to pay, you have to comply with the Paris Agreement, i.e. be carbon neutral (net zero). QatarEnergy with all the planned capacity expansions, I can assure you, cannot be carbon neutral as a company,” Al Kaabi said. Secondly, he continued, “you need to send 1000 people from the company to monitor suppliers and contractors around the world, even if they are manufacturers of a nail or a screw. The European consumer will end up paying for the staff that will conduct such research.

“My message to Europe and the European Commission is this: are you telling us you don’t want our LNG in the EU? Because I’m sure I’m not going to supply Europe with LNG to support its energy needs and then be penalized by the revenue generated around the world,” he summarized.

So, the conclusions. European countries (Turkey included) should not expect to receive Qatari pipeline gas in the foreseeable future. The pipeline from Qatar to Europe is just a PR campaign to attract interest in the Turkish gas hub that is currently taking shape.

There is no doubt that the CSDD Directive is an excellent tool to establish barriers to the entry of any unwanted gas into the EU. But there is a downside to this tool. Europe could lose the Qatari LNG, which it has been counting on and which could provide energy cost savings for European producers. Qatar is resolute about “unfair competition”: it will find other markets for gas if the EU does not revise the CSDD Directive.

The application of the CSDD Directive to US liquefied natural gas personally raises many questions for me. One thing is clear: to meet President Trump’s demands to maximize energy purchases from overseas, Europeans will have to turn a blind eye to the carbon footprint of US LNG, which is one-third higher than that of pipeline gas.