A political agreement has been reached, so negotiations can start between Hungary’s state-owned MVM Group and QatarEnergy on the purchase of gas, Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó announced in Doha after meeting the Qatari Minister of Energy and Foreign Affairs.
The Hungarian minister emphasised that Europe is facing a serious energy supply crisis and that the “flawed” oil or gas price cap will not bring the block any closer to solving this situation.
“The solution should be clear: the more natural gas enters the European market, the more secure and stable the supply of Europe would be, hence we would be able to buy at a lower price,” the Minister explained.
He reminded that Qatar has the third largest natural gas reserves in the world, the country also ranks second in the export of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and makes improvements in extraction and transportation capacities.
Hungary would like to benefit from Qatar’s LNG capacity, however, as the minister pointed out, there are some important infrastructural developments that are necessary to allow Qatari natural gas can reaching Hungary from the LNG terminals in Southern or Southeastern Europe.
“If Croatia expands the capacity of its LNG terminal in accordance with its promises, where Hungary is already the number one user, then there will be a realistic opportunity for Qatari gas to enter Hungary’s natural gas supply within a period of approximately three years,” said the Minister.
Croatia’s first LNG terminal has the capacity to send up to 2.6 bcm (billion cubic metres) per year of natural gas into the national grid. The expansion has been in the pipe for some time. Earlier in June, Croatia’s Prime Minister Andrej Plenković announced the expansion of the existing floating LNG terminal on Krk Island, from 2.9 to 6.1 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas per year.
