The UAE expects to remain a major gas importer for the foreseeable future, Energy Minister Suhail al-Mazru’i told reporters at Chatham House in London this week. The focus is now on diversifying supply: “What we tell the [UAE state-owned] companies is ‘we need gas’. From where they secure that gas: it’s up to them.”

“The question is going to be not to rely on one source... to have options. We see a demand increase in the future and we want to be ready for it,” he says. The UAE, and dominant emirate Abu Dhabi in particular, is struggling to develop enough capacity to meet its own predictions of power demand growth (see p10). (CONTINUED - 1138 WORDS)