Putin says global market stability hinges on coordination between top gas producers Russia and Qatar

MOSCOW. Oct 28 (Interfax) - Russia and Qatar are two of the world's largest producers and exporters of natural gas and global energy market stability depends on their coordination, President Vladimir Putin said.

"Very much depends, stability on the global energy market depends on our effective joint work, coordination," Putin said during talks with Emir of Qatar Tamim Al Thani, who attended the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) in Moscow.

At the forum, Putin said the main problem right now is the disruption in gas supplies. "Large amounts of supply dropped out of the market in a short period, but demand did not go anywhere. This means it is necessary to explore optimization of transport routes taking into account the geographical location of forum member countries, with the help of mutual operations among them, meaning among us," Putin said.

Putin also said bilateral cooperation between the countries is "steadily developing, a substantive political dialog has been established, the Russia-Qatar intergovernmental commission is operating."

"A set of measures is being implemented to diversify and increase the trade turnover. Although it is modest in absolute size, it nonetheless grew, grew by 10%. Investment cooperation is developing, Qatari investment agencies have equity stakes in a number of Russian companies, including Rosneft and VTB , partnership relations are developing with the RDIF [Russian Direct Investment Fund], humanitarian contacts are expanding," Putin said.

Qatar, the world's second largest producer of liquefied natural gas (LNG), is unable to ship it to world markets due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Qatar had a 9% share of the European LNG market in 2025, when the European Union, which plans to ban imports of Russian LNG as of the start of 2027 and imports of Russian pipeline gas as of October 2027, imported 146 billion cubic meters, according to Acer.

Qatar shut down LNG production at its plants, which have capacity to produce 77 million tonnes per year, as a precaution in March after the start of the U.S. war with Iran, and declared a force majeure on gas deliveries to customers. The force majeure has now been extended to the end of the year, according to media reports. In addition, LNG capacity of 12.8 million rubles in Qatar has been damaged and will take three to five years to restore.

Qatar also planned to launch the first LNG train as part of the North Field East project, which calls for building four trains with annual capacity of 8 million tonnes each, at the end of the year. However, QatarEnergy head Saad Al-Kaabi said in September that the launch of additional trains will depend on the situation in the Strait of Hormuz. The company cannot deliver equipment for new trains due to problems in the strait, he said.

Production at the North Field South field, with another two trains of 8 million tonnes per year each, is expected to begin in 2028, he said.