Qatar’s Oil
Minister Mohammed Saleh Al Sada was appointed chairman and managing
director of state-owned energy company Qatar Petroleumon Monday by the
country’s Emir Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, according to a decree cited
by the official Qatar News Agency today.
Al Sada
replaced former Oil Minister Abdullah Al Attiyah, who was made head of
the Emir’s court last month after 19 years as Qatar’s top energy
official.
Al Sada, who earned his PhD from the University of
Manchester’s Institute of Science and Technology in the UK, will head
a company that owns a majority stake in all of Qatar’s liquefied
natural gas plants.
Qatar, holder
of the world’s third-largest gas reserves, is the biggest producer in
the world of LNG, gas cooled to a liquid for transport by ship. The
country has a capacity to produce 77 million tons a year of the fuel,
or about 3.75 trillion cubic feet of pipeline gas.
Qatar Petroleum
also owns stakes in chemical, fertilizer, steel and aluminum ventures
as well as in LNG receiving terminals in the US, UK and Italy.
The
company recorded net income of QR35.2bn ($9.4bn) in
2009 on QR118.1bn of revenue, according to the company’s
annual report for that year.
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