The current state of the gas industry in the countries Middle East

Abstract

In the countries of the Middle East, oil and gas fields were discovered at about the same time, in the first third of the 20th century, but the development was mainly in the oil direction. Starting from the 1970–1980s, a keen interest in gas fields appeared, but most of these countries fell into a long period of military-political and organizational-economic turbulence. In the current period, in accordance with the increased world demand, growing environmental requirements, a long-term trend towards a fall in the cost and demand for oil, as well as the search for additional income, all these countries are developing the gas industry, but differ in terms of the internal factors of the industry’s investment attractiveness (reserves, type of gas, production volumes, consumption, infrastructure) and external (export orientation, transport component, the impact of sanctions, long-term regional military-political conflicts). The parameters of these national factors can affect both individual countries and the development of the gas industry in the entire oil and gas producing region of the Middle East. The combination of the influence of internal and external national factors creates new, potentially possible competitive advantages for the region’s oil and gas outsiders. The article systematizes statistics and analyzes reserves, production, cost and consumption of gas in the Middle East since 2008. The authors calculated the predicted values of these parameters based on the time series up to 2030. The authors also analyzed the transport possibilities and gas export by the countries of the region, which made it possible to differentiate the countries into developing gas industry in the coming years for national and/or local needs, and the gas exporting countries. The paper shows that cooperation between the oil and gas countries of the region is practically at the initial level and requires intensification of regional cooperation to create a powerful gas transportation infrastructure. The authors also determined the place of the gas producing countries of the Middle East in the world market for reserves, production and transportation of natural gas and LNG.