The introduction of a price cap on oil and gas by European Union countries will ruin the market, Saad Sherida al-Kaabi, Qatar's Minister of State for Energy and CEO of QatarEnergy, said.
"Imposing price limits will have [multifaceted] effects. First, it would ruin the market. Second, if I'm an investor in the oil and gas sector and I intend to make a final investment decision on an oil or gas project, I, when selling any product, look at the market, at the EU as a big buyer, and they set a price, a certain price, and say, [for example] they will not buy oil at a price above $50. I'm going to invest $10 billion, expecting a return of 9% or 10%, based on the price of $50 a barrel. If the next government doesn't like the price and they set the price cap at $30, what do I do?" the minister said in an interview with Bloomberg.
Speaking about the idea of imposing a price cap on oil and gas, he recommended "striving to make peace in Europe," as that would help "dramatically lower prices." "It's not rocket science, everything is obvious," al-Kaabi noted.
The energy crisis in the European Union worsened in early July when the first interruptions of gas supplies from Russia to a number of EU countries occurred, including problems with the maintenance of turbines for Nord Stream due to restrictions. The European Commission then called on EU countries to proactively prepare for a complete halt to Russian gas deliveries and introduced a plan to voluntarily reduce gas consumption by 15 percent across the community between August 1, 2022, and March 31, 2023.
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Based on materials from TASS