INTERVIEW-China's thirst for LNG unquenched -Qatar

By Daniel Fineren

MILFORD HAVEN, Wales, May 12 (Reuters) - China's and India's thirst for liquefied natural gas (LNG) is compensating for lower demand elsewhere during the economic crisis and China is the new centre of the global market, Qatari Energy Minister Abdullah al-Attiyah said on Tuesday.

The energy minister of the world's largest LNG producer said rising demand from China in particular was making up for lower consumption from established big LNG consumers Japan and Korea.

"China's needs are still not satisfied. They need huge amounts of gas. So now China is the centre today of the new LNG compass," Attiyah said in an interview with Reuters at the opening of Europe's biggest LNG import terminal in south Wales.

"It is sure that 2009 is a very difficult year for the industrial nations but we believe that growth will come back again," he said.

"Asian demand for LNG now, in other parts such as India and China, its becoming very high."

Attiyah, who is also Qatar's deputy prime minister, said that despite the economic crisis hitting gas demand in parts of the world, Qatar would not delay any new production projects and remained on track to reach its target of producing 77 million tonnes of the super cooled gas a year next year. [ID:nL6557920] "All our projects are online, so we never delay any project for LNG," he said.

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