Lux
04-06-2006, 08:51 AM
Tale of Two Countries
by Nicholas Wilson
Tuesday, 4 April, 2006
Should a developing nation that has recently struck black gold -— say West Africa’s Sao Tome and Principe -— want an example of how to get it right, and one of how to get it wrong, they could look at a couple of distant neighbours in the Gulf that share one of the world’s largest gas fields: Iran and Qatar.
Facing each other across 200 kilometres of an extremely wealthy sea, the two countries are opposites in many ways: size — Iran is vast, Qatar is tiny; population — Iranians number 70 million, Qataris barley 150,000; but it is at the political and economic level that their differences are most obvious. Qatar invited Uncle Sam to set up an air force base, while Iran is going for an eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation with the West that is driving up oil prices.
Choosing between the two nations’ economic models wouldn’t take an aspiring hydrocarbon player long.
Since it exported its first barrel of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Japan in 1996, Qatar has impressed global consumers with its reliability and open arms policies to foreign investment. It has gone on to meet the specifications of eight Japanese companies and deliver them the gas of their choice on time, again and again and again.
As the world watched the sun rise over Qatar’s energy industry and its satisfied Japanese partners, the glow of confidence in Qatar’s dependability spread first to Korea and then buyers in three continents and finally even to the United States, despite its mistrust of the Middle East.....
http://www.itp.net/business/features/details.php?id=4128&category=
by Nicholas Wilson
Tuesday, 4 April, 2006
Should a developing nation that has recently struck black gold -— say West Africa’s Sao Tome and Principe -— want an example of how to get it right, and one of how to get it wrong, they could look at a couple of distant neighbours in the Gulf that share one of the world’s largest gas fields: Iran and Qatar.
Facing each other across 200 kilometres of an extremely wealthy sea, the two countries are opposites in many ways: size — Iran is vast, Qatar is tiny; population — Iranians number 70 million, Qataris barley 150,000; but it is at the political and economic level that their differences are most obvious. Qatar invited Uncle Sam to set up an air force base, while Iran is going for an eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation with the West that is driving up oil prices.
Choosing between the two nations’ economic models wouldn’t take an aspiring hydrocarbon player long.
Since it exported its first barrel of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Japan in 1996, Qatar has impressed global consumers with its reliability and open arms policies to foreign investment. It has gone on to meet the specifications of eight Japanese companies and deliver them the gas of their choice on time, again and again and again.
As the world watched the sun rise over Qatar’s energy industry and its satisfied Japanese partners, the glow of confidence in Qatar’s dependability spread first to Korea and then buyers in three continents and finally even to the United States, despite its mistrust of the Middle East.....
http://www.itp.net/business/features/details.php?id=4128&category=