Just nine months into the year, and Qatar’s export revenues have already pushed past $100bn. Not since 2014 have the emirate’s exports achieved this level over the course of a year. With an entire quarter of strong exports yet to come, the question now is simply how high will the end-year figure be?
Driven by booming LNG export revenues, Qatar has put together back-to-back monthly export revenue records. September’s $13.07bn (see chart 1) easily outstripped August’s $12.85bn (MEES, 14 October), and October may well have seen further gains. The bulk of Qatar’s LNG is sold under long-term oil linked contracts, which crucially lag oil markets by as much as 4-5 months. That means that October LNG prices will be driven by May and June oil prices – and Brent averaged a multi-year high $117.50/B in June. (CONTINUED - 706 WORDS)
